


Hygge

by earlgreytea68



Series: Hygge [1]
Category: Shenanigans (Original Universe)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 22:24:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11769624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: "I think he’s coming here on dates just to have an excuse to see you.”“That’s ridiculous,” Max said. Because it was.





	Hygge

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. So. This one needs a little bit more scene-setting, I think. 
> 
> There was once an experimental alternate version of the main fics, back when it was still just one Main Fic, where Elliot ended up with Jonah after basically walking out and leaving Nicholas behind, alone in the apartment, and I found this absolutely devastating. Luckily for you, none of you will have to read that version, or the INCREDIBLY ANGSTY thing I wrote after it. But what you do get to read is this story, where Nicholas meets a charming waiter named Max (who was basically Aja's creation) who absolutely heals his broken heart and then some. So the Nicholas/Elliot history is a little more complicated and painful than it is in any of the other fics, but...I love this fic and Max too much and so wanted to share them still.
> 
> With all of these fics, I should have said: SPECIAL THANK YOU TO AJA FOR INDULGING THE FACT THAT THE ONLY WAY I CAN WORK THROUGH ANYTHING IS TO WRITE ANOTHER STORY ABOUT IT. 
> 
> Also, special thank you to QueenThayet for walking me through grad school peculiarities for Max. 
> 
> And special thank yous to all of you for dealing with this massive amount of fic that just got posted, oops

It wasn’t like Max went around rating all of his restaurant customers on a scale of attractiveness. It was just that, well, he couldn’t help it if a really attractive person came in and he noticed.

Anyway, Michelle saying to him, “You’ve got a 13 that just walked in, yes, I put him at one of your tables, you’re welcome,” made it sound like Max was regularly getting himself eye candy customers to ogle and maybe take home.

Max rolled his eyes at Michelle, even as he grabbed a glass of water for the new table.

“13?” asked Leah, the new waitress they were training that night.

“13 out of 10,” Michelle said. “Max has an eye for beauty.”

“No, I don’t,” Max said, checking to ascertain the new table was just one person.

“You’re getting your PhD in art history,” Michelle pointed out.

“Okay,” Max allowed, “I do have an eye for a _certain kind_ of beauty, but it’s not sketchy live Tindering in our restaurant. Ignore everything Michelle says,” he told Leah kindly, and then headed out for his table.

The guy _was_ a 13 out of 10, but Max hadn’t expected anything less because Michelle had a discerning and demanding critical eye. Michelle could have gotten her PhD in Judging Restaurant Customers. He had a pair of striking eyes that he was doing a terrible job trying to hide behind glasses, and when he smiled at Max when Max put the water down, it was soft and nice and incredibly sweet. He was a 13 out of 10 but he was a _nice_ 13, Max thought, which was incredibly rare. A 13 out of 10 who longed to be maybe a 6 or 7 out of 10 instead. Sometimes you liked customers immediately, and Max liked him.

“Hi,” Max said. “I’m Max and I’ll be your waiter tonight.”

“I’m waiting for someone,” said the customer, gesturing to the empty seat opposite him.

“Great,” said Max. “I’ll bring another glass of water. Do you want a drink while you wait?”

He ordered a glass of prosecco, and Max brought it to him, and then his dinner partner showed up. It was obviously a blind date. Max had been a waiter long enough to catch the dynamic of it immediately. A blind date, and not one that went well. Because Max was good at what he did, he kept showing up at the table to smooth over the awkward transitional bumps of their conversation. He was amused when his 13-level customer (the date was more like an 8 out of 10, which wasn’t a bad match in attractiveness, but clearly they didn’t get along intellectually) started sipping his water and prosecco at energetic rates, just so Max would have an excuse to come back to the table with refills. Interrupting a droning monologue from the date to refill the customer’s water glass for the seventh or eighth time, Max sent the customer a wink and cleared the plates, even though it wasn’t entirely clear either one of them was finished eating.

But the customer just said with relief, “Oh, good, we’ll take the check.”

***

Michelle said, “Your 13’s back.”

The credit card machine was refusing to act like a credit card machine, and Max was cursing it creatively in his head. “My what?” he said distractedly.

“Your 13 out of 10. I sat him in your section again. We got a good tip out of it last time, so, you know, be your usual charming self, or whatever.” Michelle waved her hand airily, then turned to head out to seat another table, presumably, or maybe to deliver more cryptic pronouncements to other waitstaff, who knew.

Max headed back out into the dining room and saw his new customer and remembered. _Oh_. His 13.

“Hello,” he said pleasantly, arriving with a glass of water. “Fancy meeting you here.”

The 13 gave him his sweet, open smile and said, “Hi. How are you?”

“I’m doing well,” Max replied. “Are you expecting a guest again?”

“Yes,” said the 13. “The primary recommendation of this place is how good the waitstaff is at swooping in to cover awkward first date conversation.”

“Surely not,” said Max with a smile. “Haven’t you tried the duck? The duck is quite divine. The excellent waitstaff sits just below the duck on the list of things to recommend this restaurant.”

The 13 smiled. “I’ll have to try this duck, then. Right now, I’m just relieved to know that I can request that you keep doing what you do.”

Max could have said he was just doing his job, but he also knew exactly what the 13 was getting at. “It might be a good first date, you know.” The 13 looked so dubious that Max had to laugh. He said, “I’ll start you with the alcohol, then. Prosecco, right?”

And the 13 nodded.

***

The third time the 13 came in, Max came over with two glasses of water immediately and said, “Are we in Operation First Date mode?”

The 13 nodded. And then the 13 said, “You know, I had the duck last time.”

He had, now that he mentioned it. “That’s right,” said Max. “What did you think?”

“The waitstaff is still this place’s primary recommendation,” said the 13.

Max said, “With lines like that, you should be having better first dates.”

The 13 laughed. It was the first time Max had heard him laugh, and it was as 13-out-of-10 as the rest of him.

***

The 13’s name was Nicholas. Max knew this from his credit card, which he’d now run multiple times. But it seemed weird to think of him as “Nicholas.” He was just a customer, and for all Max knew he went by Nick.

But on the night of the fourth date, when the date had departed, the 13 ordered dessert and coffee. It was uncharacteristic; he usually took off. But Max brought him the dessert and the coffee and the 13 said, “I feel like it’s weird, and I should introduce myself. Even though you know me already, kind of. But I’m Nicholas.” He actually held his hand out, a gesture Max found oddly adorable.

Max shook it and did not feel any great shifting of the world on its axis but rather a pleasant sort of heady buzz that was the natural result of the fact that Nicholas was a 13 with a nice a smile who persisted in being kind to Max. Max said, “I’m Max.”

“I already knew that,” Nicholas pointed out.

“I already knew your name was Nicholas,” Max replied. “I thought we were doing some kind of formal social custom type of thing.”

“We are, I guess,” said Nicholas.

“In that case, I’ll tell you that it’s nice to meet you, and then we should discuss the weather.”

Nicholas smiled.

And Max knew that some gentle flirting could be an excellent thing for a waiter to engage in, but it wasn’t entirely why he said, “You have a nice smile. You should smile more at your dates.”

“They should make me smile more,” replied Nicholas.

“Fair enough,” said Max. “They don’t know what they’re missing, though.” He winked at Nicholas when he moved off to the next table.

And maybe he’d crossed over a line, because Nicholas flagged down Leah to run his card for him, without waiting for Max to circle back.

It was a good thing, therefore, that Max had an uncharacteristic Saturday off so he could present at a conference in Detroit. Nicholas would have a different waiter and they would break out of this odd dynamic they’d established.

Except that when Max came back to work Michelle said, “Your 13 was heartbroken.”

Max was startled, thinking of all of Nicholas’s terrible dates. “What? Why?”

“He literally, during his date, asked Leah if he’d upset you last week and that’s why you weren’t here. Like. Seriously. That literally happened.”

“He didn’t upset me,” Max said, now worried Nicholas had thought that. That hadn’t occurred to him.

“Yeah, I know, Leah told him you had something for school you had to go to. Anyway. I’m just telling you: you should warn the guy before you disappear on him. I think he’s coming here on dates just to have an excuse to see you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Max said. Because it _was_.

***

The next time Nicholas came in, Max made sure to go out to the table with water right away and say pleasantly, “Hi.”

Nicholas looked a cross between surprised and relieved. “Hi. You’re...back?”

Max nodded. “Yeah. I had, like, a thing I had to do.”

Nicholas said, “Right. I didn’t know...if the last time...the whole social custom introduction thing--”

“It was all fine,” Max assured him hastily. “I genuinely had a conference to present at--”

“Yeah, Leah said you’re--”

“Excuse me,” said Michelle from behind Max. “But I think the other gentleman in the party has arrived?” She looked almost chagrined to have interrupted.

Max stepped aside for Nicholas’s blind date, who Nicholas greeted with the special awkwardness of a blind date, and probably Max was imagining the lack of shine on Nicholas’s introduction of himself, which had been so charming when it had been directed at Max. Max suddenly wanted a break from the table, so he took drink orders and pretended that the bartender took an inordinately long time filling them. It was unlike him to avoid a table--Max usually relished even the rude ones, piling on the super-sweetness in response--but there was something about watching Nicholas on a date that he felt he needed in small doses at the moment.

He eventually couldn’t put it off and arrived back with the drinks, and he took their order and scurried away again. Nicholas looked like maybe he wanted to say something more, but Max didn’t give him the chance.

Max didn’t even refill their water glasses, even though they both needed refilling. He deliberately skirted by the table when he went around with the pitcher. And he tried to deliver the food to the table as quickly as he could, except that as he was putting Nicholas’s plate down in front of him, Nicholas said suddenly, “Leah said you’re in school. Graduate school.”

Max looked at Nicholas in surprise. Nicholas’s strikingly beautiful eyes were steady and frank on Max. Max snuck a quick glance at Nicholas’s date, who looked astonished, and then turned back to Nicholas. “Uh, yeah. I am. I presented at a conference last weekend.”

“On what?” asked Nicholas, looking and sounding interested.

Max responded in his most simplistic form, because that was usually all people really wanted anyway. “Art. I’m getting my PhD in art history.”

“What kind of art?” asked Nicholas, still looking and sounding interested. Max had never heard him look and sound so interested with a date.

Max flickered a glance toward Nicholas’s date again, who had moved from astonishment to something like perplexed irritation. Max said slowly, “Modern art,” because usually people could just about handle that.

Nicholas said, “Modern art like Richard Prince, or modern art like Picasso, or modern art like Magritte, or…?” Nicholas trailed off, clearly expecting Max to answer.

Max just stared at him, not because he didn’t want to answer the question but because he did and the answer would take up the rest of the evening and he was supposed to be working, he had other tables to worry about.

Nicholas’s date said, “I hate to break this up, but could we possibly have some more bread for the table?”

“Yeah,” Max said, and grabbed the bread basket. “Yes. Be right back.”

When he came back, the date was waxing poetic about various spelling bee competitions he had seen. Nicholas looked up at him wearily but still sent him one of his very sweet smiles.

***

The night that Nicholas’s date arrived early, before Nicholas for the first time ever, and so Nicholas arrived to find the date at a table belonging to Leah, Leah said, “Your 13’s in. Want to switch with me?” and Max did without a second thought.

***

“Really,” Max said, after he gave it thirty minutes of Nicholas and still no date had arrived, “it’s remarkable it took you this long.”

“Hmm?” Nicholas looked up from the glass of prosecco he’d been contemplating.

“To get stood up,” Max explained, and refilled Nicholas’s water glass. “I feel like it happens to the rest of us out in the dating pool far more frequently than it happens to you.”

“I’m a doctor,” Nicholas said drily. “I’m a catch. People generally want to go out with me.” He said it with heavy sarcasm, like he was repeating something he did not at all agree with.

“You could just say no, you know,” said Max. “You don’t _have_ to go on all these dates.”

“Yes, I do,” Nicholas replied. “Otherwise, how will I meet people?”

“I don’t know. The usual way. Helping their grandmother cross the street laden with parcels, or rescuing their cat from a tree.”

“You are far more altruistic than I am.”

“You’re a doctor,” Max pointed out, because, having just learned that, he wasn’t just letting that little nugget of information go by. He wanted to know what sort, and how Nicholas had chosen that career, and if Nicholas liked it.

Nicholas said, “You're right. And that little bit of theoretical altruism is how I end up on all these dates. I have a lot of overzealous colleagues and patients.”

“Again,” Max said, “you could just say no. It's allowed. Do you want me to give you lessons in saying no?” It sounded unbearably flirty to Max’s ears. Max wasn’t ordinarily like that. He flirted with customers as a matter of course but this sounded like the next level, which was probably more than Nicholas intended by being friendly and nice while looking like a 13 out of 10.

Except that Nicholas said, “Stay and have dinner. That seat’s empty, it seems.”

Max...wanted to say yes. Who was he to talk about giving lessons in saying no, when Max wanted to say yes so badly that he had to swallow it. He looked around the restaurant dazedly, trying to remind himself that he was supposed to be _working_.

“Wait,” Nicholas said suddenly, hastily. “I’m sorry. That was too much--that sounded--I just meant--I come here every week--and never get to talk to you--don’t take that--”

Max stared at Nicholas, stumbling over his words in his clear hurry to dispel any impression Max might have had that he had smoothly and suavely planned this whole thing, and Max felt like Nicholas’s lack of suave smoothness might have been a tactic in and of itself but if it was Max was helpless in the face of it. Max felt like Nicholas’s worried beautiful eyes crumpled all of his willpower up like a piece of tissue paper. Nicholas, his 13 out of 10 who always seemed so oblivious to how high his ranking was, to how utterly irresistibly appealing he was.

Max said, alarmed at how breathless he sounded, “Let me see what I can do.” He tried to seem cool and calm and collected when he walked back into the kitchen and cornered Leah and said, “Can you cover my tables? I want to take my break now.”

“What, right now?” Leah said, looking annoyed, and Max didn’t blame her, because there was supposed to be a schedule to all of this.

“Yeah. Sorry. Something’s happened. Can I just have fifteen minutes? Give me fifteen minutes here, and I’ll work the next three Sundays for you.”

Leah considered him. “Really? These fifteen minutes are that important to you?”

Max paused and thought back over his own fairly spontaneous offer. “Yes,” he said slowly. “Apparently.”

Leah shrugged. “Fine. I think I am definitely getting the better end of this deal.”

“Thank you,” Max said, and exuberantly kissed her cheek, and then he glanced in the stainless steel rim of the door to see if his hair was semi-acceptable, because he wasn’t about to waste any of his fifteen minutes freshening up.

Max slid into the seat opposite Nicholas with two fresh glasses of prosecco and said, “Okay. We’ve got fifteen minutes. Go.”

Nicholas lifted his eyebrows. “Wow. No pressure.”

Max grinned at him. He suspected he’d been grinning since Leah had agreed to cover for him, and he wasn’t going to analyze that, because you didn’t analyze simple grins. Max said, “I thought a lot about the sociocultural intersection between the rise of Dadaism and post-World War I American expats-slash-modernist writers living in Paris.”

Nicholas said, “For your dissertation?” as if their conversation had never been interrupted.

Max nodded. “Except that everyone’s written about that.”

Nicholas said, “It’s true. I think I wrote about that when I was eight.”

Max laughed. “So, anyway, after a lot of flailing and taking way too long and making my parents despair that I would ever actually get this PhD, I have settled on comparing Dadaism to current online art subcultures like Glitch and Simpsonwave.”

“That is fascinating,” Nicholas said, and he sounded like he thought that was true.

“Do you know Glitch and Simpsonwave?” asked Max, because normally that was something he had to explain.

“I have persistently artistic and creative friends,” Nicholas said. “I don’t think there’s anything online they haven’t tried.”

“And what about you?” asked Max. “You don’t count yourself as persistently artistic and creative?”

“I am the level-headed grown-up doctor one,” Nicholas said.

“With an artist’s heart,” said Max knowingly, “or you wouldn’t have so many artistic friends.”

“I acted once or twice,” Nicholas said, with the air of admitting something he thought there was no use in continuing to deny. “Usually when my friends roped me into it.”

“I bet you were good at it,” Max said, before he could stop himself, because Nicholas seemed genuine and open and sincere but Nicholas also seemed like there was a careful barrier erected just beyond the friendly lobby area, and you had to flash just the right credentials to get through. Max thought he was probably good at burrowing into a role, at playing a part, at keeping all attention well away from his velvet ropes.

Nicholas shrugged. “I didn’t mind it, but it’s not really my thing. It’s hard enough pretending to be yourself all day.”

 _Bingo_ , thought Max, reveling in the luxury of being able to memorize Nicholas’s face much more overtly than he ordinarily did. He said, “This is why I tell you that you could say no. To the blind dates.” _You never seem half as engaged on your dates as you do right now_ , Max thought but didn’t let himself say.

Nicholas said, “I’m aware I could say no. But there’s always that possibility that maybe the next date will be the right date, and I’ll never know if I don’t keep saying yes.”

“Ah, but surely it is not that easy to lose a soulmate,” said Max.

He’d hit a nerve he hadn’t realized was there, because Nicholas’s eyes went practically opaque, as if he’d just pushed his velvet rope barrier right up to the front door, knocking Max out. He said, “You act like finding the love of your life is easy, and it’s not. It is _incredibly_ hard. How are you even supposed to know what to look for?” Nicholas took a deep breath and a sip of prosecco and Max watched him inch the velvet ropes back some, giving Max a little more room in there. He said more calmly, “Anyway. That’s why I don’t say no. Because I don’t actually know what I’m looking for, so I’d better say yes until I find it.”

Max sat opposite Nicholas and thought that he wanted to know...everything. Not just about why Nicholas was so grimly determined on the topic of love but just _everything_. Max wanted those velvet ropes thrown completely out the window. Max wanted to move the fuck in. Which was...so forcefully unexpected that he couldn’t say anything. When had he reached this point? When had Nicholas gone from his regular customer 13 to this person he... _wanted_?

Which was when Michelle said, “Hi. I’m so sorry. I’m _so_ sorry. But…” She indicated the woman standing behind her, looking at Max with desperate apology in her eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” the woman immediately started saying to Nicholas, “to be _so_ late, there’s really no excuse, except the T was a nightmare, and my phone is dead, can you believe it, and--”

Max, feeling multiply stunned now, struggled up out of the chair he was sitting in and babbled, “Sorry. Sorry. I’m so sorry. Don’t mind me,” and fled back into the kitchen without looking at Nicholas again.

Leah said, “Back already? Your fifteen minutes aren’t up. I’m still taking the--You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Max said, “can you take over table 7?”

“Okay,” Leah agreed slowly. “You’re being weird tonight. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Max nodded and went back into the dining room with food to deliver to table 11, smiling as widely as he’d ever smiled in his life.

***

Max trudged into school and collapsed down next to Bita and said seriously, “Things are not good.”

Bita looked at him in alarm. “What? Why? What’s happened?”

“I might have to claw my own face off,” said Max.

“That seems extreme,” said Bita. “Surely we can find another way to deal with whatever is going on.”

“I have developed a _huge crush_ ,” said Max.

Bita gasped and inched closer to him, because Bita loved any and all gossip she could get her hands on. “On who? Is it Randy?”

Max looked at her in disbelief. “No, it’s not _Randy_. You think I have a crush on _Randy_?”

Bita shrugged. “He’s kind of hot.”

“Do _you_ have a crush on Randy?” asked Max.

“We’re talking about you,” said Bita. “Who’s your crush?”

“He’s a regular at the restaurant. He comes in all the time on these horrible blind dates. He is charming and funny and sweet and very kind and he is _so hot_. When and how did all of this happen to me? I don’t approve of any of it.”

“Is he a good tipper?”

“It’s kind of disgusting. I feel vaguely dirty now taking his money.”

“But it’s a sexy kind of dirty now, isn’t it?” said Bita.

“You have a perverted mind,” Max told her, and then, “But yes.”

Bita laughed. “What’s the problem then? Do you think he might be a serial killer?”

“I took his name off his credit card and Googled him. He doesn’t _seem_ to be.”

“What, you think he was going to show up in the Free-Roaming Serial Killer database?” said Bita.

Max rolled his eyes. “No, but I feel like you can glean a pretty good sense of a person from their Google results. His aren’t creepy. He’s actually all sorts of exuberant fun, according to the friends group he seems to run in on social media, and he’s a fucking _pediatrician_. Like, of all types of doctors to be. He’s _that_ one.”

“Aww, he’s a _pediatrician_?” said Bita. “I don’t even know him, and that’s hot. Being a sweet caretaker to little children, and then he could home and do some caretaking of you, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” said Max.

“I could get more explicit,” said Bita.

“Trust me,” said Max, covering his eyes with his arm. “It doesn’t need to get more explicit. Especially not in public.”

“So ask him out,” Bita said. “Go be explicit in private. You’re clearly dying to.”

He was. It was true. Max had spent the two days since his weird five-minute date with Nicholas clutching his mental fingers into every detail of it so tightly it was embarrassing. It was like Max had spent all this time keeping Nicholas compartmentalized in his head as just a customer, and now that he’d decided to see him as something more, it was like opening floodgates and finding your entire previous civilization completely submerged. His brain was like fucking Pompeii or something at the moment. Which maybe was mixing metaphors now. But he felt like the attraction toward Nicholas had exploded like a great volcano, and every thought he’d had in his head not Nicholas-related had promptly been frozen into place for sometime in the future when Max felt like unearthing all of them, and in the meantime ashes were still falling all around him.

 _Ask him out_. Max had thought about this, of course. Had rehearsed it in his head, how he would sound, how Nicholas would look. It seemed...gauche, or something, to ask someone out while they were on a date with someone else, but it wasn’t like he had other ways to track him down, other than stalking him outside his medical office terrorizing all the children, which seemed like not the way to win over Nicholas, and--and Bita was right: He and Nicholas should just go on a date and then probably screw each other’s brains out and then Max would just feel _so_ much better.

***

Except that the next time Max saw Nicholas, he hesitated. He never asked customers out. Not that their restaurant was the type where the waitstaff really had regulars--they were more likely to be individuals who sat at the bar instead--but he had always considered it kind of sketchy behavior. It wasn’t some kind of dating service, after all. And maybe Max was just going to make things super-awkward between them. And maybe Nicholas would start going to a different restaurant and Max would...miss him.

“Oh, fuck,” Max said to himself under his breath, frozen in uncharacteristic indecision. This wasn’t terribly like him. He wasn’t sure why his head was making all of this so _difficult_.

By the time Max made himself go over to the table, Nicholas’s date had already arrived.

Max said, studiously professional, “What can I get you to drink?” and tried to ignore how questioningly and uncertainly Nicholas looked over at him.

Except that, by the time Max was bringing them their dinners, he was no longer dodging Nicholas’s meaningful glances, because Nicholas seemed...oddly, genuinely engaged in what his date was saying to him. It was an unusual look for Nicholas, one, Max realized with a start, he was unused to seeing Nicholas direct at anyone but him. Max started blatantly staring at the date’s progress, noticing now how much Nicholas was speaking, how Nicholas was sending those quick, devastating, sweet smiles the date’s way, how Nicholas’s entire face was warm with approval of the conversation, of the company.

Max stood gaping at the date and realized a possibility he hadn’t considered: Nicholas would actually find the person he was looking for on one of these blind dates and stop coming into the restaurant. That could happen, too.

Max was horrified.

He ran Nicholas’s credit card and brought it back to the table and Nicholas looked at him--really looked at him--for the first time in what felt like years to Max, who had just been forced to endure an evening without Nicholas’s regard, Nicholas’s smile, Nicholas’s eyes. And Max felt a paradoxically calm panic seize him. Max never let obvious good things pass him by, and he wasn’t going to start now.

“Do you want to have a cup of coffee with me sometime?” he said.

Nicholas blinked, clearly stunned.

Nicholas’s date said, “ _What_?”

Nicholas said, “Yes,” and he sounded calm and firm about it, recovered from his initial shock. “Yes, I really would.”

Max said, “Good, because you desperately need lessons in how to say no.”

Nicholas smiled, and Max smiled back. He said, “When do you want to do coffee?”

And Max said, “I’m off at eleven,” which was _ridiculous_ , they didn’t need to do anything _tonight_ , all of this could wait--

Except Nicholas said, “I’ll come back here at eleven.”

***

Nicholas recognized this feeling.

It was...odd to feel that way, and he’d spent some time recently telling himself it was all in his head, that he was imagining the way that this felt, the buzz of joyful anticipation that seemed to be infecting everything, seemed to be in the very air that he was breathing, so that he felt like he was vibrating from within. But Nicholas, waiting outside in the cold by a restaurant that was closing down for the night, knew that he had felt this way once before in his life, this delighted by recklessness, this inclined to foolishness, and it had been when he had fallen for Elliot.

Nicholas had been young then, of course. Nicholas had been so young that to look back on it felt like watching a movie that had happened entirely to someone else. But Nicholas could remember, the breathless urgency of that feeling, the clawing desire to see him again, the awe-struck contented relaxation in his presence. At the time, when he had been eighteen, he had wondered if the feeling was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing, or an every-couple-of-weeks kind of thing.

He was old enough now to know that, for him at least, it was definitely not an every-couple-of-weeks kind of thing. He was now pathetically grateful for this proof that it hadn’t been a once-in-a-lifetime thing, either. That maybe it was exceedingly rare, but there were multiple chances at this and he hadn’t lost out on this forever. Because maybe he’d thought that, once or twice, sitting on horrible dates waiting for lightning to strike.

He was so relieved lightning had struck.

The lights were out in the restaurant now, and the hostess--Michelle--slipped out the front, checking the locks, and then looking at him, and he probably looked like a sketchy, terrifying lurker.

But she recognized him, because she said, “Are you waiting for Max?”

Nicholas nodded, not knowing what else to say.

She smiled and said, “Good. About time,” and then headed off into the night.

And then Max himself showed up, rounding the corner. He’d clearly come out a back entrance. He was dressed in a Northface accentuated with a cheerful, chunky red scarf bundled up around his neck, and he stood on the corner and smiled at Nicholas for a moment, and Nicholas smiled back, and felt weirdly shy and nervous. He didn’t remember this part with Elliot. It was fuzzy in his memory. How, after fixing on someone as endlessly fascinating to you, did you go about indulging that fascination, and making him feel like you might be fascinating in return?

“Hi,” Max said, his tone as cheerful as it always was, and Nicholas loved Max’s voice, that unfailingly pleased gloss to it. Nicholas had worried and worried that it was all an act, that Max was in waitstaff mode, but Nicholas had also wondered if maybe Max _was_ cheerful. Cheerful like his tone. Cheerful like his scarf. Nicholas was taken with the idea of some cheerfulness, some _brightness_.

“Hi,” Nicholas said in reply, and then wasn’t sure what else there was to say. _You look amazing_? _I’ve wanted to take you on a date for ages now_? _I haven’t felt like this about someone in a long time_? _Do you want to come home with me_? _What can I do to make that seem more likely_?

Luckily, Max filled in Nicholas’s silence by saying, “Are you holding coffees? Did you actually go and buy us coffees?”

“The Starbucks was closing up,” Nicholas explained. “I was worried--I got one very milky and very sweet, and the other one black. I figured we could...try to make that work somehow.” He was fuzzy on how. He just hadn’t wanted to show up on the date empty-handed, and flowers had seemed like too much, and the Starbucks really _had_ been closing.

“Nicholas,” Max said, his smile warm and wide. “Can I kiss you right now?”

“You can kiss me a lot,” Nicholas said, honestly, breathlessly.

“Good,” said Max.

And then he kissed him a lot.

It wasn’t like Nicholas hadn’t kissed people before. Nicholas had kissed lots of people. Nicholas just didn’t normally feel like kisses were...this. Max kissed as if he’d wanted to kiss Nicholas for a very long time. Max kissed as if he could think of no one he’d rather kiss but Nicholas. It was heady, and giddying, and Nicholas felt drunk on Max and the way he pressed close and his hands tugged against Nicholas’s coat, smoothed against Nicholas’s chest, tangled through Nicholas’s hair. Max touched Nicholas like he was never going to stop touching Nicholas, and at the moment Nicholas was utterly content with that.

The only thing Nicholas wasn’t content with was he wanted to touch in return, and he couldn’t with his hands full of coffees.

He said into the kisses, unwilling to break them completely, “Should we go somewhere--I can put the coffees down?”

He felt Max smile against his lips, and Nicholas realized suddenly how much of a line it sounded, like he’d planned this whole thing just to have an excuse to invite Max back, and he might have explained that he’d really just wanted to _touch_ Max, pull him closer, tuck them into alignment so they could torture each other with slow friction...until they had to find a room, so it got them to the same place anyway.

Except that Max said, “My place has a coffee table. It’s a good one. If you’d like to see it.” He punctuated each of his sentences with kisses instead of periods. It was punctuation Nicholas approved of.

It was also a sentiment Nicholas approved of. Nicholas, who had invited many people to his place but had so seldom been invited to others’ places. Nicholas had kind of assumed that people thought the doctor ought to do the inviting, but here was Max, inviting him in, and Nicholas felt like the buzz of joy within him became so acute he had to breathe through it. Nicholas just felt, so endlessly, like people wanted him to invite them in, and Max was the first person in a very, very, very long time who seemed to Nicholas willing to let him reveal himself at his own pace, to let the invitation take a while. Nicholas felt a little unfair in how he felt like he was forcing Max to take the major first steps here, but at the same time Nicholas felt so...safe...in the fact that Max was so steadily taking them, with not the slightest apparent quaver of fear or uncertainty. Nicholas felt extravagantly desired, and Nicholas didn’t normally feel that way, at least not for who he was, and he didn’t know how to process it.

He must have betrayed his level of internal unsettledness somehow, because Max stopped kissed him and went to move away and said, “We don’t have to--”

“No,” Nicholas said, and immediately ducked forward to kiss Max again, and again, and again, until he’d done so much ducking forward that he’d pressed Max back against the wall of the restaurant, where Max leaned into the support of the glass behind him and sighed into Nicholas, like he couldn’t imagine anything better than Nicholas right there at that moment, and Nicholas bit under Max’s jaw, nudging Max’s scarf out of the way to uncover the stubbled skin, and Max shuddered and grabbed for him, and Nicholas let himself have one last practical thought before shifting to all-Max-all-the-time. That thought was: _Ian Purrtis had plenty of food and water out and would be fine for the night_.

Nicholas pulled slightly back from Max, panting into the humid air between them. Max looked kiss-dazed, his normally sharp gaze blurred around the edges, his normally perfect smile sloppy and lopsided. Nicholas said, “I would love to see your coffee table. I bet it’s a really nice one.”

“I’m fond of it,” said Max. “It holds coffee really well. Wait until I show you.”

“Can’t wait to see it,” replied Nicholas.

***

Max’s apartment was a tiny studio, that he had decorated very carefully to be as space-maximizing as possible. Max had read that, in a small space, you should only keep things you absolutely loved. Max adhered to that rule. It was just that he loved a lot of stuff.

And Max loved his apartment. It was a little bit cluttered, maybe, but he was meticulous about having a space for everything, and he loved its riot of colors, and the small jungle of plants that he’d thrust into every corner. And because he loved the apartment so much, Max was seldom self-conscious about having people in it. He was who he was, and there wasn’t much beyond that to debate.

So it surprised him that he was nervous about having Nicholas in his apartment.

But Nicholas walked in, in his elegant wool greatcoat he was wearing, and put his two ridiculous coffee cups down on the coffee table, and said, “What an excellent place to put coffee this coffee table is,” and smiled at Max, and Max thought he looked... _perfect_. Max spent a moment letting himself indulge in the dizziness of how perfect Nicholas looked, sparkling with cold and kisses, smiling at him in his space, slotting into it so very nicely, and looking at him the way Nicholas looked at him: like he was the most important thing, the most compelling thing, the most interesting thing, the _only_ thing. Nicholas kissed Max the same way he looked at Max, and Max suspected that he was already dangerously addicted to both things, because all he wanted was to push Nicholas back onto the bed and get his mouth on his cock and all that single-minded attention wound tight in pleasure.

Max thought he should say something that was not about Nicholas’s cock, just to keep things classy. He looked at the coffee table and said, “I’m fond of it.”

When he looked back at Nicholas, Nicholas was taking in the apartment, one of his soft, sweet smiles on his face, and he said, “It feels like you. It...feels very you.” Nicholas looked back at him and said, “It’s lovely. Do you love it?”

“Of course I love it,” Max said, a little confused by the question. “It’s everything I love in one place. There’s nothing in this apartment I haven’t chosen because of how much I love it.”

The kiss took him completely by surprise, which was why Max found himself pushing Nicholas back onto the bed before he could have any conscious thought. But Nicholas couldn’t just kiss him like that and not think that Max wouldn’t react instinctively.

Nicholas didn’t seem to be protesting. Max straddled him on the bed and could feel exactly how much Nicholas wasn’t protesting. Fuck, Max just _wanted_ him.

“Look,” Max said, around a messy kiss that was shallow by virtue of their mutual breathlessness. “I want to have a proper first date, I really do, and, like, do a lot of talking and flirting and smiling sappily and stuff.” Max pushed Nicholas’s coat off as he talked and kissed and kissed and talked.

“Is that what you do on first dates?” Nicholas asked, around yet another kiss, trying to unwind Max’s scarf.

“It’s what _people_ do,” Max said. “ _You_ don’t do it.”

“Oh? What do I do on first dates, then?”

Max stopped kissing. Max pulled back and looked down at Nicholas, his 13-out-of-10, in his bed. He said, “You flirt with me.”

Nicholas’s beautiful eyes blinked at him once, twice, three times, behind the glasses he was still wearing. And then he agreed solemnly, his voice sex-rough, “Yes. I flirt with you.”

“Fuck,” Max said, low and fervent. “I need to suck you off right fucking now.” He sat back, struggling with Nicholas’s belt buckle, feeling clumsy in his urgency.

“This fucking scarf you’re wearing,” Nicholas complained, still struggling with it. “It’s like a fucking chastity belt. You’re getting my pants off and I can’t even figure out--”

Max cut him off by swallowing him down, and then he went to work. He was overheated, still in his Northface with his scarf still wrapped around his neck, and their position on the bed was actually awkward, so that Max was in a weird position for optimum blowjob coverage, but it was fucking perfect because Nicholas choked out his name and twisted his fingers in his hair and came gratifyingly quickly. Max wanted to think it was because of his expert technique but he suspected otherwise.

He kissed Nicholas, open-mouthed, letting him taste his own taste, and Nicholas whimpered into the kiss, a helpless, oversensitized sound that went straight to Max’s own aching cock, and Max whispered, “Is that how much you wanted me? That I barely had to touch you and you were gone?”

Nicholas dragged his eyes open with what looked like visible effort, and then he combed his fingers through Max’s sweaty hair, plastered messily to his forehead, and said, “I’ve wanted you...I’ve looked forward to you every week. You can’t imagine how much I-- _Max_.” Nicholas could flip Max over onto the bed because Max was boneless with a deep-seated thrill. Max thought it was possible he could have come just from Nicholas’s speech alone, he felt so light-headed over it. But Nicholas repaid the blowjob favor and Max came as quickly as Nicholas had, in a rushing haze, and he berated himself afterward for being too blissed-out to file away every moment for further examination at opportune times in the future.

Nicholas collapsed onto the bed next to Max. Max, with fingers that didn’t want to work properly, managed to extract the scarf from around his neck, but his Northface seemed like a lot to deal with, even though he was drenched with sweat. They were both laying on Nicholas’s coat, which they’d no doubt wrinkled disgracefully.

Max said blurrily, “D’you want me to hang your coat up for you?”

“Does that require moving?” asked Nicholas, sounding as wrecked as Max felt.

“Yes. There’s a closet, like, over there somewhere.” Max waved vaguely in a way that indicated the entire apartment.

“Then no,” Nicholas said. “My coat is fine.”

Max said, “I’m going to get up in a second and make us something.”

“That sounds tremendously ambitious,” said Nicholas. “And not necessary.”

“We can’t have a first date where all we did was blow each other,” Max said. “What will we tell our grandkids?”

“Wow, you move quickly,” said Nicholas, lightly.

Max found he could get up, because Max found that he wanted to lean over Nicholas and kiss that amusement off his lips. He’d wanted to do that a million times over the past few weeks, watching Nicholas smile at other people, watching Nicholas smile at _him_.

Nicolas hummed and kissed back and said, “Personally, this first date is ranked very highly.”

“Just wait until you taste my biscotti,” said Max.

***

“There’s biscotti,” said Nicholas, sounding disbelieving. “You actually meant biscotti.”

“Did you think it was a euphemism?” asked Max, arranging the biscotti on a cookie sheet. “Never refer to my penis as a biscotti. It’s not sexy.”

“I beg your pardon,” Nicholas said, “but you haven’t heard me use it in a sexy way yet, because it turns out we really were talking about cookies and not your penis this whole time.”

Max glanced over his shoulder at Nicholas. Because his apartment was a studio, the bed wasn’t very far away, and Max had insisted that Nicholas stay on the bed, even though Nicholas had mostly righted all of his clothes and looked only slightly debauched now. Slightly debauched was a good look on him. So was more-fully debauched. Max suspected most looks would be good looks on Nicholas. “What would you think Mexican hot chocolate is a euphemism for?” asked Max, as he slid the biscotti into the cool oven for just a bit of extra crisping and went in search of some evaporated milk.

“I would think it’s a joke,” said Nicholas. “Are you really making Mexican hot chocolate?”

“There’s nothing to making Mexican hot chocolate,” Max said, adding cinnamon and vanilla to his evaporated milk. “It’s the easiest thing in the world to make.”

“No,” said Nicholas, “the easiest thing in the world to make would be opening a package of Swiss Miss and pouring some boiling water over it.”

Max laughed as he ground some nutmeg into the pot on the stove and fetched his whisk. Then he caught Nicholas’s expression. “Wait,” he said, stricken. “Is that really how you make hot chocolate? Good Lord, what a sad state of affairs, I am full of horror.”

Nicholas grinned, and then said, “You like cooking.”

“I do,” Max agreed, adding a pinch of cayenne pepper to his mixture, as he continued to whisk. “I grew up around food. My mother is a chef.”

“And she didn’t inspire you to follow in her footsteps?” said Nicholas. “Instead you chose art history?”

“I like food,” Max said. “I’m in love with art. And she gets that. Besides, I wanted a career that was more reconcilable with having a personal life. My mom’s a great mom but what I mostly remember is growing up right in her restaurants, because that was when we got to see her. I didn’t want my future kids to feel that way about me.” Max, concentrating on melting his chocolate chips into the pot, realized what he’d said and tossed over his shoulder, “Not that we should already be discussing kids. Just, you know.”

“No,” Nicholas said, sounding odd, and Max wondered what a huge misstep he’d just made, bringing up momentous future events. “Right. But you want kids?”

Max took a deep breath and thought probably he couldn’t fix it now that it was out anyway. The chocolate was still melting, so he focused on that and said, “Yeah. Eventually. In the future. I think kids would be nice.”

“Yeah,” Nicholas said. “Me, too. I know this probably isn’t something to confess on a first date, or whatever this is--”

“Date,” Max said, turning down the heat on his pot to leave it to simmer for a few minutes and going to find the cocoa powder and being careful not to panic too much over whatever bombshell Nicholas was about to say. “It’s definitely a date.”

“--but I would love--eventually--a nice house with a yard and a dog and a white picket fence.” Nicholas said it furtively, like he feared people might be listening in and swoop in to apprehend him.

Max, who’d been braced for a “confession” so much worse than this, was quizzical but just said honestly, “It sounds lovely.” And then, “An old house or new construction?” because that made Nicholas smile, which chased away the odd contemplative look he’d been wearing that had made him look uncertain and sad and impossibly vulnerable. More than confessing you wanted a suburban family life, Max thought that that amount of vulnerability on Nicholas’s face shouldn’t be revealed on a first date, and Max wanted to try to do him the courtesy of pretending not to have seen it. Even if he wanted to know all about it and what had caused it and what Max could do to make Nicholas not feel it, to make Nicholas trust that Max really wanted him, suburban fantasies and all.

Nicholas said, “It depends. How handy are you?”

Max laughed and tasted the hot chocolate, which had the perfect amount of spice, and then pulled the biscotti out of the oven. “Well, I will require a chef’s kitchen. That’s non-negotiable.”

“Oh, you’d be in charge of all cooking, ever,” Nicholas said.

“How do you know my cooking’s any good?” he asked, settling the biscotti onto a plate and the plate onto a tray.

“Because I have yet to discover a thing you’re not good at,” Nicholas replied.

Max grinned as he poured their hot chocolates out. “Ah, it’s a Nicholas line. How you weren’t getting laid after every date with those lines, I’ll never know.”

“I only use them on you,” Nicholas said. “And so far they’ve gotten me a decent blowjob, so I can’t complain.”

“Decent?” Max said, as he carried the tray over to the bed. “Really? That’s the adjective you want to go with?”

Nicholas tugged Max down by his collar and kissed him thoroughly, slow and leisurely in a way his kisses hadn’t been before, half-familiar but still half-searching, mapping out contours, and responses, moans and catches of breath. Max had the definite impression that Nicholas was taking careful mental notes about how he liked to be kissed, and that was the hottest thing. Really, _Nicholas_ , and his insistence on making Max feel like the hub of the entire fucking _universe_ , it was almost embarrassing, except for how it was decadently fantastic.

“Hi,” Nicholas murmured when he drew back, as if he hadn’t just been kissing Max senseless. “And spectacular. That’s the adjective I want to go with.”

“Okay,” Max managed. “I’ll accept that.” And then made out with Nicholas for long enough that by the time Nicholas mumbled, “But you just made us fancy hot chocolate,” the fancy hot chocolate was more like warm chocolate.

But that was okay. Max considered it a worthy sacrifice, and anyway Nicholas made a noise that went straight to Max’s cock when he tasted it, so Max was pretty pleased with his hot chocolate effort.

“So,” Nicholas said. “Max. Is that short for Maximilian?”

Max shook his head. “Nope. Just Max. Apparently my parents did not think I would go into a career where I might want a serious full name instead of a dog’s name.”

“Max isn’t a dog’s name,” Nicholas said, sounding amused.

“It is definitely the name of Goofy’s son in _A Goofy Movie_ ,” Max informed Nicholas loftily, because Max knew his Max references.

“Is Goofy a dog, though?” Nicholas wondered.

“Goofy isn’t _not_ a dog,” Max said. “What about you?”

“Well, I don’t know of any dogs named Nicholas. Although the fox in _Zootopia_ is named Nick. Does that count?”

“A fox played by Jason Bateman totally trumps _Goofy’s son_ ,” Max said fervently. “Do people call you that? Nick?”

“My family,” Nicholas answered.

Max watched Nicholas’s face closely. Nicholas was the sort of person who probably thought he was unreadable but mostly he was just quiet enough that people probably didn’t watch him closely enough. And there was a wealth of heavy information in Nicholas’s face when he said that.

 _Avoid calling him Nick_ , Max thought, and filed it away, and said brightly, “Well, I like Nicholas. It suits you.”

Nicholas smiled at him. “And Max suits you. It isn’t goofy at all. It’s very dashing.”

“Dashing,” Max echoed, and laughed. “Really? Does that suit me?”

“Don’t even pretend you’re not dashing,” Nicholas said. “You seduced me through nothing more than well-timed water refills, and then you made me Mexican hot chocolate.”

“After a decent blowjob,” Max added.

“After a decent blowjob,” Nicholas agreed with a grin. “All very dashing.”

Max shook his head a little, smiling.

Nicholas said, “You said ‘we,’ when you were talking about your mother. Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“I do. Two older sisters, Jenna and Brittany. They’re both ridiculous human beings.”

“The baby of the family,” Nicholas said. “I could see that.”

“Because I’m spoiled?” Max guessed, because that was what people usually said.

Nicholas shook his head. “You’re not spoiled. At least, not to any noteworthy extent. But you’re...cheerful, and sunny, and secure in how much you’re loved. You’ve been...doted on.”

Max looked at Nicholas, and thought of the look on his face when he’d mentioned his family, and the way he made this pronouncement as if being doted on was foreign to his experience, and tried to think of how to get information on this without saying, _Why don’t you get along with your family?_ He settled for, “I take it from your remarks that you are _not_ the baby of your family.”

Nicholas shook his head. “I am the middle child. I have an older brother and a younger sister.”

“Middle child,” said Max, echoing Nicholas’s earlier comment. “I could see that.”

Nicholas laughed. “Because I act out to get attention?”

Max laughed in return. “No. Because you’re sweet.”

“Are middle children sweet?” Nicholas asked, making a face.

“Some of them are,” Max said. “The good ones.” _The ones who don’t seem to trust that they were loved, who feel the need to play peacekeeper to earn their place in the family._ Max didn’t say all that, but it seemed to make sense with the bigger picture he was gaining of Nicholas.

Nicholas said, “I don’t know. Is it sweetness? Or is it just...trying to be nice. Like, I think I just try to be nice to people and sometimes...I get lucky.”

“I think trying to be nice to people is a good life motto,” Max said. “Probably the best. You were nice to your waiter and look where it got you.” Max crawled onto Nicholas’s lap, now that the biscotti and hot chocolate had been consumed.

“Where it got me?” Nicholas asked, amused, even as he drew Max flush up against him. “Or where it got the waiter?”

Max grinned at him. “Do you want to stay the night?”

Nicholas’s answer was instantaneous. “Yes.”

“Good,” said Max, and kissed him.

***

Nicholas woke slowly to the sounds of movement from the kitchen side of Max’s studio apartment, which meant that Max was no longer in bed with him, which meant that Nicholas had slept uncommonly well. Nicholas was good at sleeping wherever he found himself but he seldom slept soundly enough to sleep through a bedmate getting out of bed. Ordinarily all that sound and movement would have woken him. But Nicholas supposed that maybe an uncommon amount of uncommonly good sex led to him sleeping uncommonly well. He hadn’t had a lot of opportunity to test that theory.

For a second Nicholas contemplated just not opening his eyes. He suspected if he opened his eyes he would find it was morning, and morning would mean the night was over, and Nicholas didn’t really want to reach the end of this magic night when Max had taken him home and opened him up and crawled inside with biscotti and Mexican hot chocolate and that charming easy smile that made Nicholas feel warm and glowy and all lit up, all the cliched things Nicholas could think of. Nicholas had spent a few weeks yearning to get Max properly alone, and now that it had been accomplished and had been better than Nicholas had imagined, he was worried that it had been all some kind of one-off enchantment that would disintegrate in the morning light. Nicholas hadn’t considered it last night but he supposed his struck-by-lightning feeling could have been a momentary flash instead of an enduring condition. Nicholas hadn’t considered last night how you even made a feeling like that enduring.

In the end, there was so fucking much for Nicholas to come up with to panic about that he opened his eyes just to get it over with, and there was Max, in the kitchen, _making coffee_. Nicholas made a noise that probably gave himself away, but he couldn’t help it. He curled his hands into the sheets to keep from reaching for Max right then and there and turned his face back into the pillow to at least hide it while he had a minor embarrassing breakdown over the realization that Max had _made him coffee_ , which was something that literally Nicholas felt no one had ever really done for him ever before in his life. He was always the first one up, or else they were in his apartment, or else they went out for coffee. Max was _making him coffee_.

Nicholas opened his eyes again, just to check, and Max was still in the kitchen, still making coffee. He was using French presses, of course. Nicholas should have predicted.

Nicholas blurted out, “Are you making coffee?”

Max glanced over his shoulder as he stirred vigorously at his half-filled French presses. “Good morning. Yes, and toast. I would have reheated the coffee you so delightfully bought for us last night, but...I have coffee standards.”

As he was carefully filling the French presses to the top now with a practiced circular pouring motion, Nicholas just said, “I can see that.”

Max laughed and carried a tray over to the bed and put it on the crowded nightstand, on top of a pile of art books. It had the French press, and a mug, and a thick slab of toast that had clearly been cut freshly from some sort of crusty country loaf and looked like it had been slathered in ricotta cheese with a drizzle of honey, and Max had sliced up strawberries and some almonds for extra toppings.

“Three minutes on the coffee,” Max informed Nicholas. “But the toast is ready to go.”

“I can get out of bed,” Nicholas said, feeling ridiculous about this.

“No,” said Max with a grin. “You can’t.”

Nicholas looked suspiciously at the almonds. “Did you _toast_ these?”

“It takes two minutes in the oven, seriously. It’s not a lot of effort.”

Nicholas lifted his eyebrows and sprinkled strawberries and almonds onto his toast and took a bite and closed his eyes to enjoy it better, then opened them and said, “You have to stop cooking for me.”

“You make the most delicious noises over food,” Max said. “I’m going to keep a catalogue of them. Right now, Mexican hot chocolate equals a good bite to your collarbone but a simple piece of toast is worth a little bit of nipple play.”

“Okay,” said Nicholas, vaguely embarrassed, “is that _true_?”

Max laughed and leaned forward and kissed all of the embarrassment out of Nicholas.

Nicholas caught a hand up into Max’s hair, which was damp between his fingers, and his other hand landed on the collar of Max’s button-down shirt, and Nicholas pulled back and frowned and said, “You’re dressed. Like, _really_ dressed. Going-out dressed.”

“I have to work,” Max said apologetically. “I really have to, because I traded and agreed to work these Sundays in exchange for getting to have my break early that night so I could have our five-minute date before your actual date showed up.”

Nicholas stared at him. “ _Max_. You shouldn’t have--”

Max shook his head and kissed him again and murmured against his lips, “I don’t mind. You can’t imagine how much I don’t mind,” which made Nicholas’s heart thud, syrupy slow and delicious, in his chest, and Nicholas’s fingers pulled Max closer because Nicholas’s hands never wanted to leave Max even if Nicholas’s head understood that what he was saying was he had to go.

“Mmm,” Max said into the kiss, and then pulled back decisively. “I have to go. Sorry. I _have_ to go.” He kissed Nicholas’s forehead, which was _worse_ than any other kiss he could have given Nicholas, it made Nicholas want to dissolve into a puddle on the spot. “You can use my shower. It’s too tiny for fun shower times so this works out well. And…” Max looked suddenly, abruptly anxious, and Nicholas braced himself, and then Max said, in a rush, “I had a good time. I had _such_ a good time. I don’t know what your plans are for the day--and they don’t have to be related to me or anything like that--but you can stay here if you want, it’s--”

“I have a cat,” Nicholas said, because he would happily have stayed in Max’s bed and flipped through his art books and just waited for him to get back. Except for Ian Purrtis, and he wanted Max to know that. “I have to go check on him and make sure he’s okay.”

“You have a cat,” Max said, and smiled at him. “That’s so sweet.”

“I am really not as sweet as you seem to think I am,” Nicholas said, bemused by this consistent adjective from Max.

“No, you’re _sweeter_ ,” said Max. “You have a cat. What’s your cat’s name?”

“Ian Purrtis.”

Max laughed. “See, I’d braced myself for Fluffy or something like that, but that is even _better_. Ian Purrtis was okay alone last night?”

“I’m sure he was. But I should go home and give him proper cuddling.”

“Lucky Ian Purrtis,” said Max, smiling. “Where’s your phone?”

“Coat pocket,” Nicholas said.

Max retrieved it and tossed it to Nicholas but Nicholas frowned and said, “It’s dead.”

So Max ripped the frontispiece out of the nearest art book.

Nicholas squeaked in protest.

Max said absently, “I have a million of these,” and scrawled his phone number over the glossy colors of a Matisse. And then underneath it he wrote “MAX” and circled it. “So you don’t get it confused with the numbers of all the other people you date,” he said, as he handed it to Nicholas.

“I’ll call you,” Nicholas said, staring at Max’s name on the paper in his hand, which somehow made this more real. Not a one-time thing. An enduring thing. He could call him now. Call him to do this again, and again, and maybe even again.

“Good.” Max kissed him, lightly, quickly, a good-bye kiss. “Give Ian Purrtis a special cuddle from me.” And then he was gone.

***

Nicholas didn’t snoop around Max’s apartment. Max going out and leaving him here all alone had been an act of such astonishing trust that Nicholas couldn’t imagine betraying it. Nicholas got up and made the bed and cleaned Max’s kitchen as much as he could from the remains of breakfast, and then he walked home.

It was a cold, clear, bracing day, and the brisk walk did him good, woke up his higher brain functions some. When he got into his apartment, Ian Purrtis came up to him, purring, and consented to be cuddled for a second before stalking away to prove how miffed he was at being ignored all night. Nicholas checked his food and water level, hooked his phone up to charge, and took a long, luxurious shower.

Then he collapsed onto his bed and stared up at his ceiling and thought about Max: Max’s eyes and Max’s smiles and Max’s kisses and Max’s hands on his body and Max’s voice in his ear and the way Max looked at him and the warm tone to Max’s voice when he said Nicholas’s name…

Ian Purrtis, believing his point to have been made, came and curled up on Nicholas’s chest.

Nicholas reached up to grab his phone and called Caroline.

She answered with, “Hello, big important doctor. What can I do for you?”

“I met someone,” Nicholas said. He should have started slow, or led up to it, or, hell, _asked about Caroline first_. But he was a terrible, selfish individual, and the shock of having met someone he liked was too disorienting.

“Met someone like...Bernard Sumner...or…?” Caroline asked the question slowly, sounding uncertain, and Nicholas didn’t blame her, because Nicholas didn’t think anyone had expected him to _actually meet someone_.

“No. Someone I like,” Nicholas said. “I met someone I _like_.”

“Those...horrible blind dates you make yourself go on actually bore fruit?” Caroline said, sounding shocked.

Nicholas laughed. “Actually, in a way, yes. Those blind dates helped me meet someone, and I like him _a lot_.”

“Nicholas.” Caroline sounded fond now, and pleased, and happy for him, and Nicholas suddenly wished he was grinning at her in person, so they could buy some extravagant bottle of champagne and he could more fully gush. “That’s so wonderful. Who is he?”

“His name is Max. He’s getting his PhD in art history.”

“Hmm,” said Caroline, “and you’ve already fucked him.”

Nicholas sighed. “Caroline.”

“No, this is a good thing! This is an _excellent_ thing. I haven't heard you sound like this about anyone before. I’m so happy for you.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” Nicholas looked up at the ceiling and Ian Purrtis purred on his chest and he swallowed and said, “Except now here comes the part where I don’t know what I’m doing. Like, liking someone I get. It’s liking someone _effectively_ that just...I don’t know. I worry.”

“I know,” said Caroline gently. “And I get why you do. You’ve given yourself a complex about that over the years. But you shouldn’t have. You’re good at liking people, Nicholas. You really are.”

“I don’t know,” Nicholas said. “I want to be...not perfect. I don’t want to try to be perfect for him. I know that’s what I--But I want him to know how I feel. I don’t want there to be _any doubt_.”

“You can talk to him about it,” Caroline said. “That’s allowed.”

“I don’t want to be too over-the-top,” Nicholas said. “I don’t want to chase him away. But I also don’t want to--” Nicholas cut himself off and huffed, irritated with himself. “This is what I do. I hate that I do this. I paralyze myself into losing a grip on the relationship. I don’t want to be too much, and I don’t want to be too little. What are the rules on this? If I text him right away, does that frighten him away? If I don’t text him right away, will he think it didn’t really mean anything to me?”

“You've got in your head that this is some kind of pattern for you,” Caroline said. “Like you just go around serially fucking up relationships.”

“Well,” said Nicholas.

“No ‘well’ about it. Things didn’t work out between you and Elliot. I get that it made you think all sorts of things about relationships I think might not be true because the other person in that relationship with you was _Elliot_. Max isn’t Elliot.” Caroline paused. “Is he?”

“No,” Nicholas said without thinking, automatically, and then thought about it seriously and said again, thoughtfully, “No. He’s not. He’s really not.” It was kind of a revelation to say out loud, that maybe there might be certain similarities, a bright vivaciousness that attracted Nicholas, but there were also critical differences that felt like they meant even more to Nicholas.

“Good,” said Caroline. “I think that’s good. I think that will help. You like someone. You want him to like you back. But he should like _you_ back. If he doesn't he's not worth your time. So just be you. There are no rules. You do what you feel like _you_ want to do. Because you want to make sure he likes _you_. And he should, Nicholas. He really should. You're lovely, and you’re good at loving people, and he's lucky, this Max guy, that he managed to catch your eye. He's lucky, okay?”

It was a good pep talk, because Caroline knew him well by now and was generally good at them, and so he pretended it had worked, but it was hard to ignore all of the gnawing self-doubt roiling around in his stomach. He wanted to be giddy and enjoy himself. He didn't want to fuck this up by worrying about fucking it up. Which was definitely what was going to happen if he didn’t stop worrying about fucking it up.

Nicholas tried to do ordinary Sunday things, like go grocery-shopping, but what he really wanted to do was see Max again.

So eventually, Nicholas, thinking of Caroline’s advice, decided to go and see Max again. Like, maybe Max wouldn’t find it creepy. Maybe Max also really wanted to see Nicholas again. He thought of Max saying so openly, honestly, _I had such a good time_ , and thought that surely Max had said that to try to communicate how much he would welcome Nicholas expressing a similar level of enthusiasm. Max had invited him to spend the whole day in his apartment. Surely Max wanted to see Nicholas again sooner rather than later.

Nicholas found himself at the restaurant before he’d really thought it through.

And then he thought, No, what the fuck am I doing, this is definitely creepy.

And then he thought, But is it?

And then he thought, You know what’s actually creepy? Loitering outside this door.

And then he thought, _Flowers_. Like, surely a nice thing to do was to send flowers after a first date. Instead of sending them, he would just bring them himself.

Nicholas walked over to the nearest grocery store and bought Max a bouquet of flowers that struck Nicholas as being as cheerful as Max was, and then walked back to the restaurant and into the entry.

The usual hostess, Michelle, was there, and she had been listing boredly but at the sight of him she straightened and her eyes widened and she looked from him to the flowers and said, “Wait. Are those for _Max_?”

Which was a good guess, since Nicholas had never brought flowers to a date before. “Yes,” he admitted.

Michelle grinned at him. “Oh, my God, it went well. The two of you. Didn’t it? It went really well. He wouldn’t say. I mean, he said he didn’t want to jinx anything, so I assumed, and he’s basically been walking on air all shift, and now you show up with _flowers_.”

It occurred to Nicholas that Michelle was a person who knew Max, much better than Nicholas himself did. He said, “Do you think the flowers are too much? I thought they were nice, and Max might like them, but I don’t want to embarrass him, if they’re too much.”

“I think this is one of the sweetest things I’ve seen someone do,” Michelle said, “and Max is a sucker for a sweet guy. Come on, I’ll show you to a table and you can blow him away with your adorableness.”

Nicholas wasn’t sure it was going to be all that dramatic but he followed Michelle to a table and sat, cradling the bouquet in his arms. Max was taking an order a few tables away, from a family of four, including a toddler who kept trying to poke Max with a crayon and who Max was good-naturedly smiling at.

And then Max turned and saw Nicholas and an odd frozen expression crossed his face. His smile seemed forced when he came over to him.

It wasn’t the greeting Nicholas had wanted or expected.

Max said carefully, “Do you have a date tonight? I didn’t realize.”

Ah, thought Nicholas. That explained the frozen expression. Nicholas could take care of that. “Not a formal, pre-arranged date but if I’m very good, maybe this can count?” He handed Max the flowers.

Max stared down at the flowers.

Nicholas said, because the silence was terrifying him, “They reminded me of you. Bright. And cheerful. I thought you might like them.”

Max nodded at the flowers, and then looked up at Nicholas, his dark eyes as bright as the bouquet in his hands. He said, “Did you come here just to bring me flowers?”

“I came here to see you,” Nicholas said honestly. “The flowers came along for the ride.”

“Fuck,” Max said, “I’m totally going to get fired,” but he suddenly held a menu up, like that was really going to give them any privacy, and kissed Nicholas behind it with a somewhat inappropriate amount of tongue for a public place. Then he drew back and said, keeping his voice low, “I love these flowers so much. Thank you. I’m going to go put them in water, and then I’m going to bring you a glass of prosecco.”

***

Max was pretty sure he was giddy. He wasn’t sure he’d ever been giddy before in his life but it was the only adjective he could think of to describe this breathless, chest-squeezing feeling. He stuck Nicholas’s bouquet in a water pitcher in the kitchen and said to Fernando, his fellow waiter for the night, “Am I giddy?”

Fernando said, “I don’t know what the fuck you are, man, but you’ve been staring at those flowers for the past twenty minutes.”

“Giddy,” Max said. “I think I’m giddy.” He went to get Nicholas some prosecco, and then said as he put it down, “Were you planning on eating?”

“I think so,” Nicholas said. “Unless you’d rather I leave.”

“I absolutely do not want you to leave,” Max said. “Like, ever, maybe. But I’m going to see if I can switch off your table. I don’t want to have an awkward conversation later tonight about the tip.”

“And whether or not the tip can be comprised of sexual acts?” said Nicholas.

“Exactly,” Max said, and beamed down at him, his 13, now known as Nicholas, who had come to see him and brought him flowers.

Fernando agreed to trade a table with Max, not that it was busy, because it was seldom busy on Sunday nights. Nicholas ate, and then transitioned to the bar, where he spent an alarming amount of time talking with Michelle, so that when Max finally got off he went to intercept the conversation to say, “Don’t believe a word she says about me.”

Nicholas looked amused. “She’s said nothing but good things.”

“It’s true, I have,” Michelle said. “I left out all of your most terrible parts. I figure he should find those out for himself.”

“Hilarious,” said Max, and looked at Nicholas, who was regarding him with that special, soft, fond look he had that Max was _addicted_ to. “Isn’t she hilarious?”

“Yes,” Michelle agreed blithely.

“My shift is over,” Max told Nicholas. “I have been released. We can leave the restaurant and find greener pastures.”

Nicholas stood and said to Michelle, “I’ll come back later for more Max tidbits,” and actually kissed her cheek.

Max stepped outside and tucked his flowers into his coat to try to protect them from the cold, remarking, “No one’s ever actually bought me flowers before,” because it was true, and he hadn’t even known he’d _wanted_ flowers until Nicholas had presented them to him.

“I feel like this is probably way too early in this whole thing to saddle you with all of this, but I also feel like I just have to tell you,” Nicholas blurted suddenly.

Max felt himself go much colder than the weather called for and swallowed carefully and braced himself and said slowly, “Okay.”

“I like you,” said Nicholas. “I like spending time with you. And I...I have, in the past, been bad about expressing that. Or, at least, people didn’t know. Like--” Nicholas cut himself off, sounding frustrated, and took a deep breath, before trying again. “It seems that I am bad at communicating to other people how much I like them. I don’t...do it right. Or something. And I don’t want to do that with you. I want you to know that I like you. I don’t want to seem...I don’t want to give a wrong impression. But I feel like therefore I might...seem over the top? Or extravagant? Or like I’m coming on too strongly? Or something. But I’m just...trying to find a balance. And I haven’t yet. Not one I’m confident of. So, this is me telling you that I like you. And hoping that that’s not too much. And that it won’t be too much if I...keep doing that every so often.”

Max, with a hand on Nicholas’s arm, halted their forward motion.

Nicholas looked at him, huddled into his wool coat like it might be protective armor, looking uncertain, looking _vulnerable_ , the way he had that morning, the way Max just wanted to protect. _Who_ , Max wondered, _made you so sure you’re so bad at this?_ But Max didn’t ask, because it wasn’t really relevant. Max thought Nicholas was so spectacular at all of this that he was in danger of swooning over him embarrassingly.

Max said, “Noted. All noted. But I want you to know that I have zero complaints so far. And I like you, too. If that wasn’t clear.” Max kissed Nicholas, their mouths warm but Max’s nose cold whenever it brushed Nicholas’s skin.

Eventually Nicholas pulled back and whispered, “You’re freezing, and I’m worried we’re crushing your flowers.”

“You can come home with me again,” Max suggested, because that sounded like a brilliant idea to him. “If you want.”

“I have to work in the morning,” Nicholas said. “Like, early in the morning.”

Of course he did. Because he was a doctor. Max nodded and tried to sound understanding and not too disappointed when he said, “Right, yeah, of course.”

And then Nicholas said, “Did you want to come to my place?”

***

Max had been worried he would find Nicholas’s place overwhelming. But although it was newer than his place and much bigger, it was decorated in a cozy, mismatched, bohemian style that was so Nicholas that Max suddenly couldn’t imagine he’d ever been worried that Nicholas’s apartment might be fancy-doctor-chic. Max didn’t know where to look, between the furniture and the artwork and the records stacked haphazardly.

He settled for looking at Nicholas, who was vaguely anxious and doing a terrible job pretending not to be. Who, Max wondered again, had found Nicholas difficult to read? Max found him to be an open book. He said, “The biggest lie you’ve ever told me is you pretending you’re not artistic. Look at this place. It's so very... _hygge_. You're like the walking personification of  _hygge_."

"And that's a...good thing?" Nicholas guessed.

"It's a very good thing," Max assured him. "You make me feel...cozy, all the time, and this apartment is very you. You have an unerring eye.”

“An unerring eye,” Nicholas repeated, relaxing a bit. “I’ll add that to my resume.”

“It should definitely be in your online bio.”

“Have you read my online bio?”

“Of course I have,” Max said. “I don’t go home with random men I haven’t first vetted online. Where do you shop? I want you to take me. I am jealous of this coffee table.”

Nicholas looked almost embarrassed by Max’s enthusiasm now, which made Max want to be as enthusiastic as possible in response, because Nicholas deserved to be made much of enough that he would stop squirming around about it. He said, “It’s kind of been a hodge-podge of places. It’s been a definite work-in-progress for a while now. I was very…” Nicholas looked around the apartment, and then said, “ _Deliberate_ about everything I wanted in here.”

“Well, it was worth the effort,” Max said. “It’s very you. Oh, and is this Ian Purrtis?” Because a gorgeous calico cat had appeared and was judging Max.

“It is,” Nicholas said, and then said to the cat, “Ian Purrtis, this is Max,” very politely and formally, as if Nicholas was a butler introducing a visitor to the true master of the house.  

Ian Purrtis, after a second, decided to wind his way around Max’s legs, purring.

“Oh, good,” Max said, relieved. “Does this mean I’ve been accepted?”

“And forgiven,” Nicholas said. “For keeping me overnight last night.”

“So now do we get to have sex with the cat getting in the way?” asked Max.

Nicholas grinned and said, “Yes. That can happen.”

***

Max didn’t want to move too quickly. Not because he had a tendency to do that--because he really didn’t--but because he knew Nicholas was worried about striking some kind of balance, and so Max didn’t want to say, _Do you think we should move in together?_ after a grand total of a week of bed-sharing. But at the same time, Max was...euphoric. It was like walking around on a permanent high. A Nicholas high.

On Monday, Nicholas woke up early to get ready for work and Max didn’t try to make him late for work, Max really just pulled him back into the bed for what he’d expected to be a good-bye kiss that had escalated into breathless orgasms and Nicholas explaining that he was going to be late into his cell phone while Max licked come off his abdomen. When Nicholas left him alone in his enormous bed, Max starfished out and Ian Purrtis came to curl up and Max set a phone alarm and dozed for a little while, feeling magnificently coddled by the whole experience. Then he showered, discovered Nicholas had no food in his house, and went to school, grabbing a coffee and a muffin on the way. He attempted to behave normally at school and ended up spending the day flirting with Nicholas via text and by the time Nicholas was out of work Max agreed to meet him at his place and they barely made it to the living room before getting penises out of pants and then they ended up ordering takeout and Nicholas subjected Max to an entire marathon of _House Hunters_ _International_ and Max said, “Do you ever cook actual food in this kitchen you have?” and Nicholas said, “Define ‘food,’” and Max said, “Oh my _God_ ” and let Nicholas, laughing, kiss his disapproval away.

On Tuesday, Max worked at night at the restaurant and Nicholas also worked a late night and so it was midnight before Max showed up on Nicholas’s doorstep and blew him in the kitchen and then afterward, relaxed in the cocoon of how much Nicholas _touched_ after an orgasm and how much Max liked that, Nicholas said, “How was your day?” and Max cursed his adviser in seventeen different creative ways and somehow Nicholas got him to talk for a full hour, venting frustrations he’d been holding in for _months_ because he’d had no one to tell them to because no one at work cared enough and he didn’t want anyone at school to know, and by the time Nicholas repaid the blowjob favor Max felt as if he was drowning in delicious pleasurable overstimulation from Nicholas’s pinpoint attention.

On Wednesday, Max told Bita, “He _disarms_ me,” which was the best way he could think of to describe how Nicholas made him feel. That was the day he went grocery shopping for him and cooked him dinner and had it waiting when he came home from work and Nicholas said, “Stop. You’re spoiling me,” and Max said, “This is the honeymoon period. By next week I’ll just be making us Kraft macaroni and cheese,” and Nicholas said, “That would _still_ be spoiling me,” and then, “Wait, is that a French press?” and Max said, “Nicholas, if you’re going to have an addiction, it should be a _beautiful_ addiction,” and Nicholas said warmly, “Tell me about it,” with a look that was not at all about the French press, and backed Max up against the kitchen counter and absolutely ruined dinner but all for a good cause.

On Thursday, Nicholas said, “You know, you have turned out to be uncommonly good at teaching me how to say no.”

“Really?” Max asked, lazily mapping Nicholas’s ribcage with his tongue. “I don’t feel like I’ve heard a whole lot of ‘no’ out of you. Lots of ‘yes, Max, please.’ Very little ‘no.’”

Nicholas laughed. “But I have been saying no to blind dates this week. And wasn’t that the original objective of these lessons you’re giving me?”

Max looked up at Nicholas and thought, _Does this mean you don’t want to date anyone but me? Does this mean you think you might have found what you were looking for?_ It was such a typical coded Nicholas communication, veiled in layers, and Max thought he knew by now that that was partly because Nicholas was clever and playful and liked to converse that way but he also knew that partly it was because Nicholas used codes to cover up things that might be too much otherwise. So Max said, “That is such a Nicholas line. You kill me with those, you know.” Because it was and they did.  

And Nicholas grinned, looking gorgeously satisfied, and said, “I know.”

***

Things Max loved about Nicholas:

\--The way he smiled at him.

\--His ridiculously expensive shampoo that Max didn’t understand how he’d gone his whole life without using.

\--His penchant for being impossibly impressed and touched by the smallest gestures on Max’s part.

\--The way he touched Max, always purposeful and deliberate, not just in terms of sex but in terms of always: a hand on his hip when he kissed him hello, a thumb sweeping along the back of his neck when they were sitting watching television (they were trading off between Anthony Bourdain and Property Brothers and neither of them had any complaints), the weight of his touch to ground Max when Max was miffed and worked-up about school, the way he held hands tightly and firmly, like a declaration. Nicholas was the best at touching.

\--His laugh, which was bright and easy and Max loved the most when it was sudden and unexpected, when he wasn’t even trying for it, when he was just being himself and Nicholas laughed like a warm blanket tossed over Max and pulled Max out of his own head until he was there with Nicholas.

\--The concierge in Nicholas’s building who accepted packages.

\--Ian Purrtis, who was fabulous company when Nicholas was working and was totally excellent at judging bits of Max’s dissertation when he read them out loud to him.

\--Nicholas’s eyes, hidden behind glasses or revealed full-strength, and the way they crinkled at the edges when he looked at Max, and the way Nicholas’s eyes looked at Max the way Max never saw him look at anyone else, like he was happily picking up on the most interesting thing in any room.

\--Nicholas’s conversation, which could be light and witty and half-ridiculous but could also be thought-provoking and interesting and no matter what was accompanied with that razor-sharp-focused attention that could still make Max just launch himself onto Nicholas’s lap and tackle him to the ground and get him out of his clothes because there was something about being made the center of attention like that, all the time, without even _asking_ for it, no matter what nonsense Max was discussing.

\--A side note to the above was Nicholas’s ability to seem genuinely interested in Max’s dissertation. And Max didn’t think it was faked. No matter what had happened in Max’s day, Nicholas was interested. But Nicholas also managed to make interesting whatever had happened in Nicholas’s day. Max assumed that maybe Nicholas was magic.

\--Nicholas’s magic (he almost definitely had some).

\--Nicholas’s kisses, single-minded and adoring, and the way they never stopped, the way they spilled out of him with a sense of wonder every time. Max couldn’t comprehend being a source of wonder. Which led to the last item on the list:

\--The way Nicholas made him feel.

***

Nicholas was insistent that Max not cook every night.

Max was insistent that they not eat out every night, not least because he couldn’t afford it.

They’d had a frank conversation about finances, that Nicholas thought had gone well, and he was careful about remembering that Max was still in school, because Nicholas did remember those days, they hadn’t been that long ago. Nicholas would have taken Max out to dinner every night if Max would have let him get away with it. One of the things that astonished Nicholas about Max was that Max had been the one to bring up the money topic over one of the dinners, and to put his foot down about pulling his own weight. It made Nicholas determine to coddle Max in non-financial ways. Which, to be honest, was working out well for both of them.

At any rate, they had reached a compromise, and on one of those compromise nights, they were sitting in a cosy wine bar not far from Max’s, while Max talked about citations for his dissertation. Nicholas had learned more about citations than he had ever had to care about in medical school.

Max said suddenly, “How much wine have you had? Is that your second glass?”

Nicholas looked at it and said, “Yes?” confused about the question. He didn’t think they drank an alarming amount. He had, in fact, consciously cut way back on alcohol consumption after stopping to really think about it at one point in his past.

“Okay. I was waiting for the second glass.”

“Oh, Christ,” said Nicholas in alarm. “For what?”

“It’s nothing. Not a big deal. Do you want to go out for drinks with the people from school?”

“Sure,” Nicholas said slowly, because he knew that was the right answer.

“No. See.” Max shook his head. “I’m doing such a terrible job.”

“No, you’re not,” Nicholas said instinctively, still turning over going to drinks with Max’s friends. “You’re great.”

“Right.” Max smiled at him, one of his bright cheerful Max smiles. “You say that automatically, you know. It’s so cute, the way it’s your instinct to soothe that way. I love it.” Max leaned over and kissed Nicholas lightly. “But I am doing a terrible job of teaching you how to say no to things you want to say no to. If it’s too much too soon, it’s too much too soon. I’m not going to think you mean anything by saying that.”

“It’s not,” Nicholas said. “I mean, it’s just drinks with friends.” He said it lightly, as if drinks with friends were not oftentimes emotional minefields that had to be carefully negotiated. But surely Max’s friends had fewer interpersonal entanglements for Nicholas to get trapped in. Surely.

Max tipped another smile at Nicholas, this one wry. “Are you trying to figure out how to ask if my friends are nice?”

“I’m sure your friends are nice,” Nicholas said instantly.

“But you want to know if they’re going to cause some kind of soap opera scene over drinks. Don’t worry. I know how much you hate soap opera scenes. I wouldn’t walk you into that situation without a fully briefed warning.”

Nicholas stared at Max, and thought of the inevitable day he was going to have to walk Max into drinks at Deep Ellum with Elliot and Jonah, and said suddenly, “Do I hate soap opera scenes?”

Max laughed, sweetly and fondly. “You _hate_ soap opera scenes. You even avoid them in your reality television, which is impressive. You’re not hugely into drama. Case in point: you tense up whenever I brush a topic of conversation you think might lead to drama. It’s fine, though. I like that about you. I like the lack of drama. It’s good. It’s nice.” Max smiled, and Nicholas believed him.

Nicholas took a sip of wine and pretended to savor it while really thinking. And then he swallowed it and said, “It’s possible you’re right and I’m not hugely into drama.”

Max laughed again. “Should I tell you something else about yourself?”

Nicholas chuckled. “Yes. Go for it.”

“Your favorite color is yellow.”

“My favorite color _is_ yellow,” said Nicholas, surprised.

Max grinned and kissed Nicholas like he couldn’t help it.

Nicholas said, like he couldn’t help it, “I’d love to meet your friends.”

***

It wasn’t a test, and Max knew that. He especially wanted _Nicholas_ to know that.

“It’s not a test,” he told Nicholas, as they took the T to the bar, because Max had insisted, because Nicholas would have Lyfted all over Boston and Max was appalled by this terrible habit.

“This is making me feel like it’s definitely a test,” Nicholas told him.

“It’s not a test,” Max insisted. “I like you. It doesn’t matter what my friends think.”

“You think your friends won’t like me?” said Nicholas, looking alarmed.

“Fuck,” Max said, stricken. “I should stop talking now.”

“You should have stopped talking five minutes ago,” Nicholas said. “Now it’s way too late to stop talking. Why won’t your friends like me? You should have given me pointers on how to make them like me!”

“No.” Max shook his head. “They’re going to like you. I didn’t give you pointers because I know they’re going to like you. I just...I did this stupid thing.”

“What stupid thing?” asked Nicholas.

“It didn’t have to do with you. It was...I had this...thing...with one of the professors at school. Not _my_ professor or anything, but...It was unwise and stupid and I behaved like an idiot over him. But you’re not him. I know you’re not him.” Max looked into Nicholas’s beautiful eyes and said this firmly.

“Your friends thought your thing with this professor was stupid,” said Nicholas.

Max nodded.

“You’re worried your friends will also think this thing with me is stupid,” said Nicholas.

“They won’t,” said Max, but he sounded miserable even as he said it.

“Max,” said Nicholas, but he said it fondly, and then he pulled Max in and kissed the top of his head. “You told me we weren’t going to have any soap opera scenes.”

Max pressed his face into Nicholas’s chest, grateful for the familiar snuggle, and said, “I said _my friends_ wouldn’t cause any soap opera scenes. I didn’t say anything about _me_.”

“You think you’re the only one with unwise relationship decisions in your past who your friends are going to be thinking of when they meet...you?” said Nicholas, and then, “It turns out that the pronouns are all weird and confused in that sentence--”

“I got the gist,” Max said, and lifted his head. He knew there was something in Nicholas’s past, he had caught the contrails of it across Nicholas’s otherwise sunny skies every so often, and Nicholas looked grim about the whole thing now, which wasn’t what Max had wanted. “We all do stupid things sometimes.”

“I don’t think we’re a stupid thing,” Nicholas said, in that declarative tone of voice that he could have sometimes that dared the universe to prove him wrong.

“I don’t think so, either,” Max said, and he really did mean it, and it was silly for him to be suddenly worrying, it was just that Bita had dredged it up by referencing it at school that day and Max had been semi-dwelling on it ever since.

Nicholas said suddenly, “I should tell you. Before I forget to, in all of life’s other complications.”

Max smiled. “That you like me?” he asked, because Nicholas had not relaxed his vigilance in saying that every so often.

“That you make me happy,” said Nicholas, which he had never said before and made Max go still, even as the T screeched and rocked them back and forth.

Nicholas said nothing more, just gazed at Max steadily, and Max swallowed and said, “Me, too. You make me happy, too.”

***

Max had been tipsy. Not terribly. Just enough not to argue when Nicholas called a Lyft. Just enough, in the back of the car, to mouth at Nicholas’s neck and put his hands under Nicholas’s shirt and say, “Fuck, you’re so great. You’re, like, the best.” Which was nice to hear, because Nicholas didn’t doubt that Max thought he was great, but Nicholas hadn’t doubted it with Elliot, either, until then it hadn’t been true, and so it _was_ nice to have it said out loud.

“You’re quiet,” Max said later, laying in bed together, Ian Purrtis purring in the strip of Elliotress they left him above their pillows. He had his hand on Nicholas’s chest, above his heart, which was a habit he had, which Nicholas found endearing but odd: between the two of them, you would have thought he, the doctor, would have the obsession with anatomy.

Not tipsy enough, Nicholas thought, not to notice that he was quiet.

“Look,” Max said, and shifted to prop himself up on his elbows to look down at him. “If you didn’t like my friends, I am _really_ not going to be offended.”

He was fucking this up again, he thought, by not _saying_ things. “No,” he said. “Your friends are great. That’s not why I’m quiet.”

“Okay,” Max said slowly.

“Your friends care about you. Your friends were worried about you, with the professor thing. That’s so sweet.”

“They’re...friends,” said Max. “I know your friends care about you, too.”

“No, they do. They definitely do. I just...Thank you, for telling me about the whole thing, because it helped when suddenly I was being asked all sorts of close questions about our power dynamics.”

“Oh, God,” said Max, looking embarrassed. “That was horrible, let’s not revisit that.”

“I mean,” continued Nicholas, “without your explanation, I would have thought they were angling for a top-bottom discussion, or BDSM, or something.”

“Oh, Bita would just come right out and ask,” Max said. “Have no fear.”

“I thought I was in love with this person once,” Nicholas said, because if he didn’t say it now, he was worried he never would.

Max looked surprised at the topic of conversation. “Oh,” he said. “Okay. You don’t have to--”

“No, I do have to. Because you should know, because I think a lot of what I--It turned out that I didn’t really know him. Or he didn’t really know me. Or I knew pieces of him but not all of him. Or vice versa. Or...I don’t know, whatever happened, whatever went wrong, I was left with the distinct impression that he never had any idea how I felt about him. And then later, when I thought about it, I realized that I didn’t understand why I had ever thought I knew how he felt about me. We did absolutely everything wrong that two people could do wrong. Or at least that’s how it felt. We could have been perfect for each other, or thought that we were, or something, except for how we never once learned to communicate effectively, and neither of us noticed, until the moment when he did and he left, and I’ll just never forget how…” Nicholas took a deep breath and searched for the right word. “I’ll never forget how _surprised_ I felt. Like, getting him _that wrong_. I thought I made him happy and I didn’t and I don’t want to do that with you. That’s why I’ve been so...I don’t want to get it wrong with you. So anyway, I guess what I’m saying is, that’s what I have in my past, and that’s the emotional entanglement you need to know about when you meet my friends, that all of that happened and they knew all about it and they’ve been waiting for me to...I’m telling you in case I’m not brave enough to tell you later.”

Max was silent for a long moment. And then he said, “Thank you. For telling me. And whatever else might happen between us, whatever else we might be heading toward, I want you to know--I will promise you right now--I won’t surprise you like that. I promise you I won’t. I will talk to you. I will always talk to you. We will communicate the _fuck_ out of this relationship. I promise. And when I say you make me happy, I _mean_ it. I mean every syllable of it. As long as I say it, I will mean it. I promise you that.”

Nicholas looked at him, and Nicholas believed him. Nicholas nodded.

Max shifted, settling so that now his ear was over Nicholas’s heart. He murmured, “You were in love with him.”

“What?” said Nicholas, not really understanding the point of the statement.

“You said you _thought_ you were in love with him. But clearly you were. That wasn’t a trick your heart played on you. Have you not been trusting your poor heart all this time? You were in love, and for whatever reason, it didn’t work out. It doesn’t always. But it’s okay to have let yourself be in love with him. That’s okay.”

Nicholas smoothed his hand over Max’s hair and listened to Ian Purrtis purr and Max’s breaths even out into heavy sleep.

***

Caroline said, “When do we get to meet him?”

Actually, Caroline said that basically every day. Or at least whenever they talked.

It was easy for Nicholas to think that the reason he put off introducing Max to his friends was because of what Max would have called the potential soap opera scene of Elliot. But truthfully Nicholas didn’t think there would be a soap opera scene with Elliot. When he thought of it, when he was honest with himself, there was the fact that Elliot had been happily enmeshed in Jonah for years now, and Nicholas barely thought of the Elliot he knew now as the Elliot he’d thought he’d spend the rest of his life with, because, while still the same Elliot, they were also so essentially different (and maybe had always been).

But at first, it was easy to be vague with Caroline and let her think he was worried about introducing Max to Elliot.

Except that Caroline eventually said, “Look, I’ve talked to Elliot about the fact that you’ve met someone.”

Nicholas actually laughed, imagining the serious earnest scene. Christ, he thought, he was out-of-practice with the engineered aesthetic tableaus that were the best way of communicating with Elliot. He could just imagine the gorgeous dramatic poses Caroline and Elliot would have employed during the discussion.

It was the laugh that gave him away. Caroline said, “Hang on, you weren’t worried about introducing Max to Elliot, were you?”

“Look,” Nicholas said, “Elliot’s with Jonah, and everything that happened happened a long time ago. Elliot would only give a fuck about who I’m dating because of the aesthetic glory of getting to be wide-eyed and weepy. He doesn’t _actually_ really care, because he’s happy, he’s just bad at letting himself be undramatically happy.” _And that isn’t my problem anymore_ , thought Nicholas, and thought of heading home to bright and cheerful Max, and smiled.

“You’re being hard on Elliot, of course he cares who you date, he wants you to be happy. But if you’re not worried about introducing him to Elliot, then what’s the problem?” demanded Caroline.

“Things are going well with Max,” Nicholas said without thinking.

“And you’re worried we’d fuck it up for you?” asked Caroline, sounding hurt.

“No. No, I’m not. I just don’t want to…” _Jinx it_? thought Nicholas. Although that didn’t sound right. “I mean, it’s just easy right now, I don’t want to complicate it with--”

“Nicholas,” Caroline said slowly. “I just realized this. Like, literally just realized this.”

“Realized what?” asked Nicholas, feeling somewhat caught-out and not sure why.

“It’s effort for you,” she said, and she didn’t sound upset, she sounded affectionate. “When you’re with us, it can be effort for you. You’re always acting with us, aren’t you?”

“No,” Nicholas said. “I’m not, I just--”

“I don’t mean it in a bad way. I just mean that I should have figured this out so much earlier. You were you--or so you thought--with Elliot. The rest of us were getting some version of you. He was getting you. No wonder that whole thing hit you hard. And no wonder you’ve seemed so different lately. Because Max is getting _you_ , isn’t he? When you say you don’t want to bring him for drinks, you’re just resisting going back to a _version_ of you, in front of him, aren’t you?”

Nicholas hesitated, because maybe he’d never thought about it in exactly those terms before, but maybe Caroline was right, a little. “Maybe,” he admitted. “A little bit.”

“You don’t need to be a version of you,” Caroline said, “and you never did, but I think you know that. I think that’s just not you, really, to be yourself all over the place. But that’s okay. When you feel ready, we’re all still here.”

Nicholas had thought Caroline was the best for years now, so it was kind of show-offy of her to go and prove it again.

***

Nicholas’s friends were all extravagantly artistic, and to Max this was hilarious. He had known all along that Nicholas was innately artistic, and it was delightful, because it came out in his engagement with Max’s area of expertise, but he had been unprepared for how artistic Nicholas’s friends were. Nicholas had tried to prepare him. Nicholas had been what to Max’s eyes had been unusually scattered in his descriptions of them, unusually anxious about the whole meeting. But Max saw that Nicholas hadn’t been scattered, and hadn’t done much exaggerating. Hazel really did try to rope him into a forty-eight-hour marathon play she was producing in which all of the lines would be delivered backward. Blake really did hand across two-for-one coupons for his next gig at Applebee’s.

And when Max said politely, “Oh, I didn’t know they did...live entertainment...at Applebee’s,” because he was unsure what the show was actually about, Blake just said flatly, “It’s unclassifiable. You should come.”

“It _is_ unclassifiable,” said Jonah, “and you _should_ go. It has to be seen and heard to be believed.”

Jonah, a professional actor, like that was a thing people made money doing outside of Hollywood. Max had never really stopped to think about that before. When Nicholas had told him, Max had said, _He’s a professional actor who lives in Boston?_ And Nicholas had said, _Yes_ , sounding almost bewildered by the question. But now that Max had met Jonah, he could see how it made some sort of sense. Jonah seemed like a person who would want to buck all expectations of where you should go to be a professional actor.

Caroline was a photographer who tended bar on the side to supplement her income.

“Server solidarity,” Max said to her.

“We should have a special handshake,” said Caroline.

“Shh,” Max said. “We totally do, we just don’t share it in front of the non-servers.”

Caroline grinned at him, a pretty, eye-crinkling, nose-wrinkling smile. Nicholas talked about Caroline more than he did the rest, in an off-hand way that revealed how much time he spent talking to her, and Max could see that, there was something comfortingly steady about her that Max suspected Nicholas liked about people, covered up by a layer of frothy fun that Max also suspected Nicholas liked about people.

Caroline said, “Am I allowed to know the handshake if I’m only a temporary server? Until the photography kicks in enough so I can work full-time.”

“Hey, temporary serverdom totally counts,” Max said. “I’m in the same boat, after all.”

“How long until you’re done with your dissertation?”

“Twelve years,” said Max.

Caroline gasped. “Really?”

Max laughed. “No. It just feels that way.”

“And then what will you do after the dissertation?” asked Jonah.

“Teach, hopefully,” said Max. “Academia’s not the easiest thing to break into, but I’m hoping stars align, et cetera.”

“I always thought about getting my PhD,” remarked Jane, who somehow was managing to smoke even though they were inside and it was very illegal. Max at least appreciated that she was blowing the smoke mostly toward Elliot, who didn’t seem to mind. “And then I decided a dissertation seemed like a lot of work and I’m lazy.”

“Oh,” said Nicholas, “because Google isn’t a lot of work?”

“Have you ever seen pictures of Google’s offices?” said Caroline. “It definitely isn’t work.”

Jane ignored both of them to ask Max about his dissertation, and when Max said the topic, all of Nicholas’s friends basically fell over themselves wanting to talk about Glitch and Simpsonwave.

“I feel like I should be taking notes,” Max said eventually, a little overwhelmed by all of their opinions.

“Stop,” Nicholas said good-naturedly to his friends. “Max is supposed to be taking the night off. Ordinarily he does nothing but stare at his draft and move sentences around.”

He...did do a lot of that. Max opened and closed his mouth and then ventured ineffectively, “I don’t _always_ do that.”

“You do always do that,” said Nicholas lightly.

“So how did you meet?” asked Elliot suddenly, surprising Max, since Elliot had been largely silent in the entire enthusiastic discussion. _Directing_ , Nicholas had said about Elliot, when Max had asked for the artistic expression of choice for each of Nicholas’s artistic friends. And Max could see that. There was an attitude about Elliot, an air of casual expectation, that the world was a stage and he was orchestrating it as a hobby.

Max said, “Blind date,” and Nicholas laughed.

Elliot gave Nicholas a look and suddenly Max just knew: _Elliot_. Nicholas had not explicitly pointed any fingers, hadn’t even said the person he’d been in love with was still a member of his friends circle, but now that Max was looking it seemed obvious to him. Nicholas was relaxed and easy next to him, but when Elliot spoke again Max, on the watch for it, noticed the sense of careful wariness next to him, a reserved reticence that reminded Max of earlier days with Nicholas, the velvet rope being nudged up protectively.

Elliot said, “A blind date?”

“He’s being flippant,” Nicholas said. He said it warmly and fondly, and really Max might never have put two and two together had it not been for the way Elliot had looked at Nicholas, sharper than the way you looked at a casual friend laughing at a new lover.

Max decided to pretend he hadn’t noticed. If Nicholas hadn’t told him, it was doubtless because Nicholas wanted to pretend it wasn’t A Thing. “I am being perfectly accurate,” Max said. “Nicholas went on an entire series of terrible blind dates, until I saved him.”

“He was my waiter,” said Nicholas.

“Aw, how romantic,” said Jane.

Elliot said, “You took all of your blind dates to the same restaurant? Of course you did.”

Caroline said, “He was taking them there so he could see Max.”

“It was very elegant wooing,” Max said. “Excellent tips.”

“Excellent tips?” echoed Elliot.

“I’m joking,” said Max. “He was a horrible tipper.”

Elliot looked uncertain, like he didn’t know what to say next.

Caroline said, “I’m thinking ProfDoc.”

“Oh, God,” said Nicholas.

“Or DocProf,” she said.

“For what?” asked Max.

“Couple name,” said Nicholas.

“Oh, well, no, clearly their couple name is Nicholax,” said Jane.

“That sounds like constipation medication,” said Max, and Nicholas winced. “I’m thinking Maxolas. Like a Roman gladiator or something.”

“How about Nicho _max_?” said Caroline. “Is that better?”

“Not everyone needs to have a couple name,” said Jonah.

“You say that only because you two have never decided on one,” said Caroline.

“I keep saying there’s nothing wrong with Jelliot,” said Jane, sounding amused, blowing a smoke ring toward Elliot.

“I prefer Jolliot,” said Jonah.

“Like, Jolliet, Illinois?” said Max.

“No,” said Elliot. “Not like that. I think Ellionah is vastly preferable.”

“Because it puts your name first,” said Jonah, sounding amused and fond. Honestly, it was a very Nicholas sort of tone, and suddenly all of that made sense to Max, too, that you would only leave someone as warm and fond as Nicholas to go to someone at least equally warm and fond.

“And because it rolls off the tongue,” said Elliot.

“Ellionah?” echoed Caroline. “Rolls off the tongue?”

“It does have the proper aesthetic.”

“Ellinah would be better,” said Blake. “Or Jonell. Honestly ‘ell’ works better at the end, the way it did for you and Nicholas.”

Everyone around the table froze, except for Blake, who looked completely oblivious.

And Max, who simply turned to Nicholas and said, “What was your couple name?” and squeezed Nicholas’s knee under the table in a way that was meant to convey, _I figured that out. It’s fine_.

Nicholas seemed to get the message, because he just answered, “Nickell, with a double-l at the end.”

“That was a thing we were doing at the time,” Jane said. “You tried to make Janell work for a little while, Caro, remember?”

“I thought that was cute,” said Caroline. “I mean, Elliot and I were Elloline and I always thought that was horrible.”

“That would make us Maxell,” Max said to Elliot, and he wasn’t sure why he said it. Except maybe to indicate that he was fine with this? That it was all clearly in the past? That Elliot, sitting nestled into Jonah, such an unmistakable single unit, seemed very much in the Jolliot phase than whatever Nickell phase may have happened at some point?

Elliot, after a second, said, “Or Elliox,” and Max supposed that whatever he was meaning to convey with his question, Elliot had answered it positively enough.

***

Caroline, after an enthusiastic hug of Max, was now enthusiastically hugging Nicholas and saying something in his ear that Max deferentially did not eavesdrop on in favor of checking the time as he finished twirling his scarf around his neck.

Nicholas finished for him, giving it a final tug in an absent manner that Max barely noticed because Nicholas often liked to bury his fingers into Max’s scarf, and Max said to him, “Look how late it is. We shall have to take a Lyft.”

“The extravagance,” said Nicholas, amused.

“Have you been taking cabs, Nicholas?” asked Jane.

“The T,” said Nicholas, and Max felt like everyone reacted like this was the most shocking thing they’d ever heard. Nicholas was continuing, “Max believes in the subway.”

Max tried not to sound super-judgmental as he said, “Well, it’s a little irresponsible not to use public transportation when you live in a city with good public transportation.”

Elliot said, sounding absolutely aghast, “You think the T is _good public transportation_?”

“Ignore him,” said Jonah, once again in that warm and fond tone he used for Elliot that was really very sweet and made Max very glad Elliot had found a person to sound that warm and fond at him so that Nicholas had been free to be that warm and fond at Max. “ _Enchante_ , Max,” said Jonah, and executed a courtly bow over Max’s hand like that was a normal thing to do.

“Yeah, same,” said Max, probably the very picture of bemused.

“Lyft,” Nicholas said, looking up from his phone. “Arriving now. Leave off, Jonah, you have yours.” He said it playfully but he still threaded his fingers into the hand Jonah had bowed off of.

“I can’t help it if you have good taste, Nicholas,” said Jonah. “ _Nouveau depart_.” He gave them a wave that was more of a flourish.

Max slid into the backseat of the Lyft and turned to Nicholas and before he could even ask the question Nicholas said, “Yes. He’s always like that. He wasn’t you.”

Max, after a moment, started laughing. He couldn’t help it. He laughed so hard that he couldn’t stop. He had to press his face into Nicholas’s neck, slightly embarrassed that the Lyft driver probably thought he was losing his mind.

Nicholas was equally bewildered, to be fair. He said, “Is this a good thing? This fit of hysteria.”

“Giddy,” Max gasped, thinking of a moment that seemed so long ago now, of Nicholas’s cheerful flowers, of Fernando shaking his head. “You make me giddy,” said Max, and managed to catch his breath, but stayed there, resting in the curve of Nicholas’s shoulder, and thinking, _I’m so lucky. I’m so fucking lucky I found you._

***

Nicholas, yawning, said, “Oh, Ian Purrtis, let’s see if I make it to the bed before collapsing.”

“You’re a doctor,” remarked Max, closing the door behind them. “You’ve had tougher evenings. This wasn’t even bad.”

“It’s an adrenaline crash,” said Nicholas, falling backward onto the bed. “It’s all the nervous energy I expended.”

Max looked at him on the bed. He had his eyes closed, and looked a little like he could fall asleep just like that, still in his coat. Max said, “Worried about me meeting Elliot?”

Nicholas, after a second, opened his eyes and looked a little chagrined. “No. I really wasn’t. I was worried about you meeting all of them generally. I didn’t actually think you’d figure out it was Elliot.”

“I have two observations,” Max said, untwirling his scarf and tossing it into the corner and then crawling onto the bed to straddle Nicholas.

Nicholas looked up at him. “And they are?”

“Observation number one: I’d write Elliot a fucking thank-you note, to be honest. For walking away from you, so that you were in a position to show up in my restaurant and be you, and be so warm, and so fond, and so amazing, and so dedicated to making sure I feel embraced every minute of every day.”

“Funny how it worked out,” said Nicholas. “Funny how _beautifully_ it all worked out. Because I think Jonah and Elliot--”

“Jonellellionahott,” said Max.

Nicholas laughed. “Whatever we’re supposed to call them. I think they’re well-suited.”

“I thought so, too,” said Max, because he had. He could see why Nickell had been a thing at one point, because he knew Nicholas, and because Elliot had the sort of undeniable charisma it was impossible to dim, so that Max could see very clearly how extra-brightly Elliot must have shown to a younger Nicholas, how extra-appealing Elliot’s compelling chicanery must have been to Nicholas, who had a deeply playful side that he loved to indulge. But he could also see how maybe they had been off-balance, Nicholas and Elliot, how maybe Nicholas’s quieter and more naturally reserved side, the side he fought to stay demonstrative and vocal, would have stood in the way of fully understanding each other. He could see that Elliot and Jonah seemed to suit, that they matched each other on willingness to be brash in a way Max couldn’t imagine Nicholas engaging.

But Nicholas derailed all of Max’s thoughtfulness about past interpersonal relationships by saying, “Yes. They got each other. And I got you. And I love you.”

He said it with such _simplicity_ , such acceptance, such...declarative-statement-ness. Max, worried he’d been caught so off-guard that it had taken him too long to respond, said in a rush, “I love you, too. I love you, too,” and kissed him and kissed him and stripped him of his clothes and murmured, “I love you, too,” into every bit of skin Nicholas had, so that Nicholas would know that every inch of him was beloved.

So much later, sunk into their pillows, with Ian Purrtis managing to curl up on both of their chests at once, Nicholas said sleepily, “What was your second observation?”

“Hmm?” said Max, just as sleepily.

“You said you had two observations.”

“Oh, your observation trumped all of mine.”

“What was it, though?” insisted Nicholas.

“Just that...I finally get why you told me you wanted kids and a house in the suburbs in the same tone of voice people use to confess they’re furries. Like, I feel like it would be easier to tell that group of friends about absolutely any given sexual proclivity over a desire for a white picket fence.”

Nicholas, after a moment, laughed breathlessly for a bit, before saying, “Well. You’re not _wrong_.”

“I’m sex-drunk,” Max said, “and tired, and you just told me you loved me, so you shouldn’t pay attention to any of this.”

“Okay,” Nicholas agreed, warm and fond and Nicholas.

“The furry thing would have been fine. If that’s what it was. But I’m kind of happy about the kids and the house in the suburbs thing.”

***

Kids and a house in the suburbs took them a little while. There was first a discussion about an apartment in the city, together. Max wrote out budgets and walked through what he could afford for rent, and what he was comfortable with Nicholas kicking in, and they picked a place together, larger than Max could ever have afforded but not lavish, full of odd quirky angles that Max filled with plants and beds for Ian Purrtis because Max liked Ian Purrtis to be able to roam the apartment napping.

“Nobody needs more than one bed,” Nicholas told him.

“Ian Purrtis does,” Max replied.

Maybe Max liked to stretch out for catnaps with Ian Purrtis when he was sick of his dissertation and Nicholas was at work, but Ian Purrtis kept his secret.

Max’s sister Brittany came to visit in the fall. She loved Nicholas passionately and Max found them watching _Milllion Dollar Listing_ together and eating Nutella straight from the jar and he made them crepes to have with their Nutella and Nicholas pulled him down between them and Max thought of how he got to have two of his favorite people love each other.

Or all of his favorite people, eventually, because Max took Nicholas home for Christmas, just as their one-year anniversary was looming, and his parents and Jenna, having heard about him from Brittany, absolutely doted on him, and Nicholas seemed to love all of the chaotic family life, Max’s niece and nephew shrieking underfoot, being corralled into offering opinions on the strident debates the family had about the proper way to make piecrust. Max said, at the airport, in line for security, ready to fly home, “Thank you for being the best about all of that,” and Nicholas kissed him breathless instead of replying and then said into his ear, “They’re _wonderful_ ,” and then kissed him some more.

In the spring Max started applying for jobs, his dissertation defense looming. It was a horrible time period, juggling two stressful things at once, and Nicholas was a godsend who supplied well-made French press coffee and even decent food that surprised Max. “I’ve been practicing,” Nicholas said when Max asked. “I remember what med school was like.”

Job prospects were dim, which Max had known when he’d chosen this path. It had been before he’d met Nicholas, and he’d always thought that maybe he’d travel some, try to get a lectureship in China or something, work his way up to something better. Now he was reluctant to do that. He hadn’t expected to meet Nicholas.

Nicholas, who was always so carefully honest with him, who talked to him about _everything_. Nicholas to whom he had promised a year earlier to communicate the fuck out of their relationship.  

Max spent an evening of overwhelming stress hiding under the covers in their bed mumbling to him about the uncertainty of his future, until Nicholas pulled the covers off of him and kissed him until his breaths shuddered for better reasons than a panic attack and said, “Apply where you need to apply. Interview where you need to interview. Get through your dissertation, and we’ll see what the landscape looks like, and we’ll make a decision.” It seemed so calm and logical and Max sobbed, “I love you,” feeling ridiculous for feeling so overwrought when Nicholas was so _Nicholas_ , and Nicholas said, warm and fond, “You need me to take you away somewhere for a weekend and fuck all the stress out of you,” and Max said, “ _Please_ ,” even though Max usually was so careful about not allowing Nicholas to spend money on him.

They went off-season to Nantucket and holed up in some tiny cottage by the dunes that Nicholas found for them and they didn’t get dressed the entire weekend and survived on cheese and olives and bread, and Froot Loops cereal, and Hostess cupcakes, and bottles of wine, because such had been their haphazard shopping on the way to the house.

Max, calmer when he got back from Nantucket with all the stress fucked out of him, applied to every fucking job that vaguely appealed, like throwing cards up in the air.

They landed in Iowa, which was not a state Max had any connection with or had ever thought about much in his life. But it was an offer for _tenure-track_ , and Max and Nicholas spent a tense and oddly quiet evening in their apartment looking through websites about Iowa City.

Max said, “You shouldn’t come. You don’t have to come,” because this was _terrifying_ somehow,  being responsible for Nicholas moving to _Iowa_.

Nicholas said, “Do you not want me to come?”

“No. I didn’t say that. I just mean--it’s not what you signed up for. When this whole thing started between us. Moving to _Iowa_. You should think about this. You shouldn’t do it just because--just because--” _Just because it’s me_ , Max didn’t say.

Nicholas clicked through websites on Iowa City.

Nicholas didn’t bring it up again for two whole days.

Nicholas brought it up again by the Charles. “Get out of the house,” he told Max. “You’re suffocating. It’s spring. Come to the river. Get some fresh air.”

Max did feel like he was suffocating but he didn’t think it was a lack of fresh air. He went with Nicholas to the Charles, though, and he obediently sat when Nicholas spread a blanket out on the grass by the water. Boston had tipped into spring while Max had been freaking out. The trees were crowned with shocking green florets like Impressionist brushstrokes. The sky was spring-bright blue, and snow-white sailboats drifted through the water, and Bostonians were out in force, tumbling out of hibernation.

Nicholas said, “Iowa.”

Max said miserably, “Fuck. Do we have to talk about that on this beautiful day?”

Nicholas said, “Me, staying behind. You, going. I’ve been thinking about it ever since you said it, and it feels like…” Nicholas took a deep breath. “It feels the way it did when Elliot left. Like I’d be standing in this apartment where I thought my happiness had lived, and it would be empty again, and I would have to start over. I’ve done that before. I don’t want to do it again. I don’t know if I have it _in_ me to do it again.”

Max squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead against his drawn-up knees and said, “I didn’t mean to make to you feel like that. Fuck, fuck, fuck, I promised you I would never do that.”

“Max,” said Nicholas. “Maximilian.”

“Not my name,” said Max, confused. “It’s just Max, remember?”

“I know. But I thought maybe, for this, you’d want to have a full name instead of a Goofy name. So. Maximilian.”

Max looked up in exasperation. “What are you--” He stopped and looked at the ring Nicholas was holding out to him. Then he looked up at Nicholas. “Nicholas,” he said, and then stopped again.

“You were the reason I said yes,” Nicholas said. “All those times I said yes, because I was looking for something: you turned out to be that reason. I am always going to keep saying yes, because it’s worked out so far. And I’m sitting here hoping that you’re willing to say yes to me, too.”

“Yes,” said Max. “I’m not even going to make you ask the question. Yes.” Max tackled him to the ground and kissed him and then pulled back and said, “Just to clarify, are we getting married?”

“If you want to,” said Nicholas, putting the ring on Max’s finger.

***

Max successfully defended his dissertation.

Max graduated with his PhD and a new ring on his finger and the photos from graduation were full of Nicholas, Max’s favorite of him planting a kiss on Max’s cheek, eyes closed against the tassel on Max’s cap swaying toward him.

They bought a house in a suburb of Iowa City. It had a white picket fence. Nicholas paid the down payment but Max protested less because marriage talk had shifted their discussion of how to divide finances. They stood on the front porch and looked down their new street and Nicholas said, “It’s a nice suburb,” and Max said, “Could use a couple of furries on it,” and Nicholas smiled at him.

Max distributed many of his plants among their friends, as solemnly as making bequests in a will. Caroline took one and was utterly terrified in an adorable way and sent him almost daily texts about how it was doing. Blake took one and later texted Nicholas, indignant, that it wasn’t a marijuana plant, and Max laughed and laughed at the assumption. Jane took one and casually paid an absurd amount of money months down the line to send Max a clipping of it, just to prove how well it was doing. Jonah and Elliot took one and Jonah said, “It will be an experiment in seeing if we are responsible enough to have a cat,” and Elliot scowled and said, “I’ve given you sunshine, I’ve given you dirt,” and Jonah laughed.

On their first night in their new house, with boxes scattered about them and Ian Purrtis hiding in indignant anger over the journey, Max set up a select number of spices and ingredients in the kitchen.

Nicholas said, “Okay, we can’t find our phone chargers, and you’ve managed to locate your nutmeg?”

Max smiled at him and took out a pot and made them Mexican hot chocolate and heated up some biscotti, and when he put it on the floor next to Nicholas, where Nicholas was hunting through a box of wires in search of the phone chargers, Nicholas looked at it for a long moment. Then he said, “Max,” and took a deep breath.

Max said, “First night in our new house. We can’t tell our grandkids all we did was blow each other.”

It wasn’t what they told their grandkids. But it was mostly true.

 


End file.
